New Delhi- With just days to go for the G20 Working Group meeting on Tourism in Srinagar, the Government of India announced on Friday that China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have yet to confirm their attendance, indicating they are likely to skip the meeting.
“A total of 60 international delegates have registered so far for the Third working group meeting to be held from May 22-24,” Union Tourism Secretary Arvind Singh said, briefing the media in Delhi.
“A total of 17 G20 member countries have confirmed their participation till now. Those who have still not registered are China, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The number of invited countries is 9 out of which only Egypt has not registered so far, Singh added.
In addition to it, several countries will have a low-key participation as they plan to send officials from their embassies in New Delhi rather than diplomats from their capitals, Hindustan Times reported.This is the first major international event to be held in Kashmir ever.
The report claims that China is not attending the event as its ally Pakistan has raised objection to India conducting the event in Kashmir. It skipped the G20 meeting held in China in March. Whereas Turkey had criticised India for doing away with the special status to Jammu and Kashmir in 2019.
UN’s special rapporteur on minority issues Fernand de Varennes had recently criticised India over the G20 meet in Srinagar. “G20 should on the contrary uphold ‘International human rights obligations & the #UN Declaration of Human Rights should be upheld… and the situation in Jammu and Kashmir should be decried and condemned, not pushed under the rug and ignored with the holding of this meeting’,” he added.
As a result, several other countries have decided to have a low-key representation.
“Saudi Arabia and Mexico are likely to be represented by diplomats from their embassies in New Delhi instead of officials from their respective capitals,” Deccan Herald quoted sources as saying.
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