Representatives of the Saarc member states in a two-day inter-governmental meeting that began yesterday have almost finalised the draft of ‘Saarc Charter of Democracy’, said Foreign Secretary Mijarul Quayes.

Emerging from the ongoing meeting at Hotel Sheraton in the city, Quayes said at a press briefing that they would come up with the complete outcome on the draft today.

“We’ve progressed much…we can say nearly 80 percent work is done. We hope we’ll be able to come up with the final outcome today,” he said.

Asked about the contents of the draft, Quayes declined to divulge anything. He said, “We’ve the responsibility of preparing a draft…it’ll go through two more processes once the draft is done. We’re working on it and all the members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) countries are very sincere about the issue.”

Earlier, the two-day meeting tasked with finalising the draft of the ‘Saarc Charter of Democracy’ began at Hotel Sheraton in the morning.

Representatives including parliamentarians, high commissioners, high officials from the eight member countries–Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Maldives–are attending the meeting. (more…)