Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group meets in London

Accra, Feb 9, GNA - The next meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group on the Harare Declaration (CMAG) would come off at the Marlborough House in London on the 10th and 11th of February 2005. This was announced by the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Don McKinnon in a release issued on Tuesday by the Commonwealth secretariat in London.

The meeting would be the third of the CMAG after its reconstitution by the Commonwealth Heads of Government in Abuja, Nigeria in 2003.

According to the release, the group would consider the Pakistani situation, which has remained on the Group's agenda since the lifting in May 2004 of it's suspension from the Councils of the Commonwealth. The CMAG was established by the Commonwealth Heads of Government to deal with serious or persistent violations of the Harare Declaration, which outlines the Commonwealth's fundamental political values. The Group's current members are the Foreign Ministers of Nigeria, who is serving as Chairman, the Bahamas (Vice Chairman), Canada, India, Lesotho, Malta, Samoa, Sri Lanka and the United Republic of Tanzania. The meeting on 10 and 11 February would be the 25th meeting since its establishment in 1995. The last meeting was held in New York in September 2004. CMAG usually meets twice in a year to consider developments in the countries on its agenda.