Nepal's Foreign Minister Mahendra Bahadur Pandey will arrive in Sri Lanka today to officially hand over the invitation for the 18th SAARC Summit to President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Sri Lankan Government.

Pandey will be accompanied by Mani Ratna Sharma, Under Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal. Yesterday, they handed over the invitation for the SAARC Summit to Abdulla Yameen, the Maldivian President.

The SAARC Summit will take place in late November, with events starting from Nov. 22. The main summit will be held on Nov. 26 and the SAARC Declaration will be announced the next day.
 
According to the events calendar, the programming committee meeting at the joint secretary level will be held Nov 22. The foreign secretaries' Standing Committee will meet Nov 23-24.

The SAARC council of ministers will get together Nov 25. The summit will be inaugurated Nov 26. The next day, the summit declaration will be announced followed by a retreat for the regional leaders.

Maldives hosted the last SAARC Summit in 2011.