Jaishankar To Cross ‘Strained’ Borders To Attend SCO Meet In Pakistan Mid-October

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will visit Pakistan to attend Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) ‘Heads of Government’ (HoG) meeting in Islamabad, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told presser on Friday.

“The external affairs minister will lead our delegation to Pakistan to participate in the SCO summit which will be held in Islamabad on 15 and 16 October,” he said.

It was be the first visit by Indian’s foreign minister in 10 years.

The question of India’s representation at the summit had garnered significant attention and there was speculation on whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend or depute a senior minister, as has been the practice in past meetings, given the strained bilateral relations between both nations. Pakistan downgraded its ties with India after the Indian Parliament abrogated Article 370 on August 5, 2019.

Pakistan will be hosting the SCO meeting as it holds the rotating chairmanship of the CHG, the second highest decision-making body in the Eurasian group after the Council of Heads of State. As the host nation, it had extended an invitation to PM Modi for the in-person SCO meeting.

The two-day event will include meetings focused on financial, economic, socio-cultural, and humanitarian cooperation among SCO member states, which include India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Notably, India hosted the SCO Summit last year, organised virtually, and it was attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif through a video link. In May 2023, Pakistan’s then foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had visited India to attend the in-person two-day meeting of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers in Goa. He was the first Pakistani foreign minister to visit India in almost 12 years.