Foreign Minister’s meet

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was established in 1985 with 7 founding members.
SAARC now comprises eight Member States: Afghanistan (joined in 2007), Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
There are nine observer countries namely Australia, China, European Union, Iran, Japan, Mauritius, Myanmar, South Korea, and the United States.
The Secretariat of the Association is located in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) is a forum aimed at enhancing cooperation through elaborating multilateral approaches towards promoting peace, security and stability in Asia.
CICA was established in 1992.
It currently has 27 members including India. India has been a member right since CICA’s inception.
CICA Secretariat, the administrative body of CICA is located in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.

Recently, India participated at the Foreign Minister’s meetings of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia.
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar listed a number of measures taken by India in the past few months including the SAARC Leaders video-conference convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a COVID-19 Information Exchange Platform (COINEX), a SAARC Food Bank mechanism, as well as the SAARC COVID-19 Emergency Fund, to which India has contributed $10 million.

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