Washington February 10,2020 (GNP): United Nations Secretary General António Guterres is going to visit Pakistan this month in order to participate in a conference on refugees, UN and diplomatic sources told GNP on Sunday.
An official statement was released in Islamabad that said, Pakistan will hold an international conference on the presence of Afghan refugees in the country this month to mark four decades of their presence. The two-day conference — “40 years of Afghan Refugees Presence in Pakistan: A New Partnership for Solidarity” — would be held in Islamabad on Feb 17-18. Prime Minister Imran Khan will inaugurate the conference, which will bring participants from 20 countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is co-hosting the conference, the secretary general and other key UN officials will also participate, sources in New York said.
Besides the UN, multilateral development banks, international refugee agencies, and major non-governmental organisations are also sending their representatives. “The conference will be held at an important juncture as efforts to consolidate peace in Afghanistan are making progress,” a Foreign Office spokesperson told reporters in Islamabad. Diplomatic observers in Washington noted that the UN secretary general would be arriving in Islamabad in the middle of a major humanitarian and security crisis over India-held Kashmir.(GNP)