Will invite PM Modi to Pakistan for SAARC summit: Foreign Office Spokesman

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be invited to Pakistan for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit, Foreign Office Spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal said on Tuesday.

Addressing a conference in Islamabad, Faisal recalled that Prime Minister Imran Khan in his first address had said that if India took one step forward, Pakistan would take two.

Prime Minister Modi will be invited to Pakistan for the SAARC summit, Faisal was quoted as saying by Dawn newspaper.

SAARC Summits are usually held biennially hosted by a member state in alphabetical order. The member state hosting the summit assumes the Chair of the Association

The last SAARC Summit in 2014 was held in Kathmandu, which was attended by Modi.

The 2016 SAARC Summit was to be held in Islamabad.

But after the terrorist attack on an Indian Army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir on September 18 that year, India expressed its inability to participate in the summit due to "prevailing circumstances" and stepped up diplomatic pressure on Pakistan. Nineteen Indian soldiers died in the attack.

The summit was called off after Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan also declined to participate in the Islamabad meet

Maldives and Sri Lanka are the seventh and eighth members of the initiative.