The SCO, comprising India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, is an influential financial and safety bloc that has emerged as one of many largest trans-regional worldwide organisations.
Pakistan on Thursday invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s Council of Heads of Government meeting to be held right here in October.
Pakistan holds the rotating chairmanship of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of Government (CHG) and in that capability, might be internet hosting the two-day in-person SCO Heads of Governments Meeting in October.
“Invitations have been sent to the heads of countries to participate in the meeting which will take place on October 15-16. An invitation has also been sent to the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi (too),” Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch instructed the weekly press briefing.
Some international locations have already confirmed participation (for the meeting), which might be knowledgeable in the end, she stated.
When requested about ties with India, the spokesperson stated, “Pakistan does not have direct bilateral trade with India.” The Islamabad summit meeting might be preceded by a ministerial meeting and several other rounds of senior officers’ conferences targeted on monetary, financial, socio-cultural, and humanitarian cooperation among the many SCO member states.
The SCO, comprising India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, is an influential financial and safety bloc that has emerged as one of many largest trans-regional worldwide organisations.
As a part of this key regional group, each Pakistan and India can maintain summit conferences.
India hosted the SCO Summit final yr, organised in a digital mode, and attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif by means of a video hyperlink.
However, Pakistan’s then international minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari visited India in May 2023 to attend the in-person two-day meeting of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers in Goa, which was the primary Pakistani international minister to go to India in nearly 12 years.
Islamabad and New Delhi have an extended historical past of strained relations, primarily due to the Kashmir problem in addition to the cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
India has been sustaining that it needs regular neighbourly relations with Pakistan whereas insisting that the onus is on Islamabad to create an surroundings that is freed from terror and hostility for such an engagement.
Pakistan downgraded its ties with India after the Indian Parliament abrogated Article 370 on August 5, 2019.
