ISLAMABAD, June 16: Foreign secretaries of the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) will meet in Nepal on July 9 for an extraordinary session of the standing committee of the association.

This would be the first foreign secretary level contact between Pakistan and India since the thaw in 16 months of strained relations between the two countries.

The two-day extraordinary session of the Saarc Standing Committee, headed by the foreign secretaries, has been convened by Saarc Secretary-general in Katmandu.

The dates for the extraordinary session were officially communicated to all the member states last week, diplomatic sources confirmed on Monday.

“The meeting has been convened to finalise the dates for the 12th Saarc summit and to address urgent administrative and budgetary matters,” a senior official said.

Pakistan is to host the next Saarc summit. Last month Pakistan proposed to convene the summit in Islamabad in the first half of December.