Indian FM Jaishankar to arrive in Pakistan on Oct 15 for SCO summit

Islamabad: Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will visit Pakistan to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit later this month, the Indian foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday.

“The external affairs minister will lead a delegation to Pakistan to participate in the SCO Summit which will be held on October 15 and 16,” Randhir Jaiswal said at a weekly press briefing.
The visit will be the first by an Indian foreign minister to Pakistan in nearly a decade.

Earlier, the Foreign Office (FO) had confirmed that Prime Minister Modi has been invited to the SCO Council of Heads of Government meeting, which Pakistan is hosting on Oct 15-16, under its rotating chairmanship.

FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch had said, “An invitation has also been sent to the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi,” adding that some countries had already confirmed their participation in the meeting.

Meanwhile, a comprehensive security plan for the upcoming SCO summit was appr­oved on Wednesday at a meeting chaired by Federal Minister for Interior Mohsin Naqvi.

The interior minister said additional personnel from Pakistan Army, Rangers, FC and Punjab police will be deployed to ensure foolproof security for the guests.

In May last year, then-foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had visited India to attend the two-day meeting of the SCO Cou­ncil of Foreign Ministers.

He was the first Pakistani foreign minister to visit India in almost 12 years.

At a Senate panel later that month, Bhutto-Zardari called it a “productive and positive decision” to participate in the event.

“As far as the Kashmir issue, bilateral issues between Pakistan and India, and the responsibilities of multilateralism are concerned, my conclusion after the trip is that it is a productive and positive decision to participate in the event,” he had said.

Similarly, former adviser on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz visited Amritsar in Dec­­ember 2016 for the Heart of Asia conference. Add­itionally, when India hosted the SCO Council of Heads of State on July 4, 2023, in a virtual format, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif participated, demonstrating Pakistan’s willingness to engage despite the strained bilateral relations with India.

India’s participation in the SCO, even otherwise, is a delicate balancing act, weighing its need for regional security cooperation against its wariness of China’s growing influence within the organisation. By engaging selectively in SCO’s economic strategies, India is pursuing a nuanced approach that aims to counterbalance Chinese dominance while fostering constructive ties with Central Asian nations.

India’s hesitation to attend meetings in Pakistan is a well-established stance, dating back to its boycott of the 19th Saarc Summit in November 2016, which was to be hosted by Pakistan. The boycott led to a stalemate, leaving the regional body in limbo, as the Saarc charter mandates that all member states must be present for a summit to take place. In contrast, the SCO has no such restriction, allowing for more flexibility in its meeting arrangements.