Pakistan has cancelled the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference which was scheduled for September 2015. The conference was to bring together speakers of Commonwealth nations in Islamabad. Pakistan has took the decision as India had threatened to boycott the meet if Pakistan did not extend invite to Jammu and Kashmir Assembly speaker. The conference, which was to bring together speakers of Commonwealth nations, will now be held in New York in the first week of October.
Pakistan had ruled out inviting the J&K Assembly speaker saying it does not recognise and accept the state assembly as legitimate one. A total of twenty-seven out of the 28 members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association voted in favour of changing the venue of the meet if Pakistan does not invite J&K Assembly Speaker Kavinder Gupta.
Commonwealth Nations
- Commonwealth is an intergovernmental organization of 53 member states that were mostly territories of the former British Empire.
- The Head of the Commonwealth is Queen Elizabeth II.
- The Secretary-General of the Commonwealth is Kamalesh Sharma.
- Total Gross Domestic Product for Commonwealth countries is greater than that of the EU.
- The latest country to join the Commonwealth was Rwanda in 2009.
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