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Jaishankar will go to Pak for SCO meeting, first visit by EAM since Sushma Swaraj 9 years ago

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be in Islamabad on Oct 15-16.

This will be the first visit to Pakistan by an External Affairs Minister in nine years.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will lead the Indian delegation to Pakistan for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s Council of Heads of Government on October 15-16, the Ministry of External Affairs said Friday.

In August this year, Pakistan, which holds the rotating chairmanship of the SCO CHG, said it had extended invitations to all heads of government of the SCO member states, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for the meeting in Islamabad.

This will be the first visit to Pakistan by an External Affairs Minister in nine years – Sushma Swaraj led the Indian delegation to the Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference on Afghanistan that was held in Islamabad on December 8-9, 2015.

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Also Read | Jaishankar will go to Pak for SCO meeting, first visit by EAM since Sushma Swaraj 9 years ago

Pakistan Prime minister Nawaz Sharif and External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj after a meeting in hydrabad house on Tuesday. (Express Archive Photo by Anil Sharma. 27.05.2014.)

Swaraj also met Nawaz Sharif, who was then the Pakistan Prime Minister, and held discussions with her counterpart Sartaj Aziz. Following the meetings, an India-Pakistan joint statement on December 9 announced the decision to start a Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue. On December 25 that year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached Lahore for a meeting with Nawaz Sharif. It was a surprise visit on his way home from Russia via Afghanistan.

The SCO meeting in Islamabad is being held at a time when protests by supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan are roiling Pakistan. On Friday, the Associated Press news agency reported that authorities placed shipping containers on key roads and highways leading to Islamabad and suspended cellphone service in an attempt to prevent Khan’s supporters from holding a rally seeking his release.

Explained

The chill in ties

Pakistan downgraded ties with India in 2019 following the abrogation of Article 370 that ended J&K’s special status. India has said it desires normal relations with Pakistan but the onus is on Islamabad to create an environment free of terror and hostility for such an engagement.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government, according to AP, also deployed paramilitary rangers and additional police and shut schools in Islamabad and the nearby city of Rawalpindi after Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party refused to withdraw its call for the protest.

Pakistan downgraded ties with India following the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, ending the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. Relations between the two countries had already dived in February that year following the Pulwama terror attack and the Balakot air strikes.

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In May 2023, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who was then the Pakistan Foreign Minister, 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.

Shubhajit Roy

Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More

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