No bilateral talks: Jaishankar’s visit centres only on SCO summit

Islmabad: India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar landed here on Tuesday to attend the two-day meeting of the Council of Heads of Government (CHG) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) — what came as the second visit to Islamabad from a top diplomatic official from New Delhi in nearly a decade.

The visiting official is scheduled to hold meetings with Pakistan’s top government officials on the sidelines of the CHG meeting.
However, he has already announced not to discuss bilateral relations involving India and Pakistan with the hosts during his visit here.
Indian foreign minister rules out bilateral talks at SCO summit

“I expect there would be a lot of media interest because of the very nature of the relationship — but I do want to say it will be for a multilateral event. I am not going there to discuss India-Pakistan relations,” media reports quoted the Indian foreign minister as having said at an event in New Delhi earlier this month.

“I am going there to be a good member of the SCO, but since I am a courteous and civil person, I will behave myself accordingly,” he was quoted to have said.

Before Jaishankar, the last time an Indian foreign minister visited Pakistan was in December 2015 when late Sushma Swaraj, the then Indian External Affairs Minister, landed in Islamabad to attend the Heart of Asia moot in the federal capital.

The ties between India and Pakistan are on downward trajectory especially since August 2019 after Indian Parliament passed an allegedly controversial law to deprive the Indian Held Kashmir (IHK)of special status and autonomy.

In reaction, Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC), in the same month, approved downgrading of diplomatic relations with India, suspension of bilateral trade, reviewing bilateral arrangements, taking the matter to the United Nations.

Earlier, the Indian external affairs minister was received by Foreign Office’s Director General for South Asia Ilyas Mehmood Nizami at the Nur Khan Airbase, said an official statement.

Later, he met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

The two-day meeting of SCO CHG, the second highest forum within the SCO, is being chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as the current chair of the Council.

Pakistan had assumed the rotating chair of the SCO CHG for 2023-24 at the previous meeting held in Bishkek on 26 October 2023 where the country was represented by then interim Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani, the statement said.

Meanwhile, the delegates from other SCO member, observer and dialogue partner states landed in the federal capital in connection with the CHG meeting on Tuesday. They were received by the officials concerned.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday for a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, the first top Delhi diplomat to visit their arch-rival neighbour in nearly a decade.

Jaishankar’s plane landed just before 3:30 pm (1030 GMT) at an chaklala airbase near the capital Islamabad, a foreign office official said, as state TV showed him receiving a bouquet of flowers from a host delegation that did not include any senior ministers.

Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan are bitter adversaries with longstanding political tensions, having fought three wars and numerous smaller skirmishes since they were carved out of the subcontinent’s partition in 1947.
Relations have been particularly sour since 2019, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the limited autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir.

The Himalayan region is divided between India and Pakistan but claimed by both in full, with each accusing the other of stoking militancy there.
Modi’s 2019 move was celebrated across India but led Pakistan to suspend bilateral trade and downgrade diplomatic ties with New Delhi.
Indian government spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said this month the agenda of Jaishankar’s visit would strictly follow the SCO schedule, which is due to discuss trade, humanitarian and social issues.

Islamabad is keen to project an image of stability and security during the conference after a rash of civic unrest in the capital and militant attacks elsewhere across Pakistan in recent weeks.

Former Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj was the last to visit Pakistan in 2015, arriving for a summit on Afghanistan.

Modi also made a surprise visit to Pakistan that year, shortly after taking office for his first term, sparking short-lived hopes of a thaw in relations.

The SCO is a bloc of 10 nations established by China and Russia, which have used the alliance to deepen their ties with Central Asian states and vie for influence in the region. However, they have recently pitched the organisation as a competitor to the West. The bloc claims to represent 40 percent of the world’s population and about 30 percent of its GDP, but its members have diverse political systems and even open disagreements with one another.

Pakistan’s former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was in Goa last year — also a rare visit — for an SCO meeting where he and Jaishankar were involved in a verbal spat.

It was the first official visit by a senior Pakistani official to their eastern neighbour since 2016, but the two foreign ministers did not hold a one-on-one meeting.