AT THE Wagah border, a poster of Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani with the inscription “Long Live Pakistan” is plastered on the wall. Pakistan Rangers guard the gates at the ‘zero point’ on the India-Pakistan border, about 400 km from Islamabad where the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of Government are meeting.
On Islamabad’s streets, LED lights welcoming the visiting Chinese Premier Li Qiang illuminate the evening, with the flags of Pakistan and China adorning the roads. Li, the first Chinese premier to visit Pakistan in 11 years, was received at the airport by Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday. And the SCO international media centre is located at the showpiece China-Pakistan project in the capital — the ‘China-Pakistan friendship centre’, built by Beijing as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s pet project, the Belt and Road Initiative.
Geelani’s poster at the India-Pakistan border, sharing space with the country’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the warm welcome accorded to the visiting Chinese Premier, and the media centre at the ‘China-Pakistan friendship centre’ send out a clear message on the priorities and interests of the Pakistan government.
In this backdrop, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar landed in Islamabad on Tuesday afternoon for the SCO meeting — the first Indian External Affairs Minister to visit Pakistan in nine years. The last such visit was by Sushma Swaraj, who travelled to Islamabad to attend the ‘Heart of Asia’ conference on Afghanistan, on December 8-9, 2015. Jaishankar, then India’s foreign secretary, was part of Swaraj’s delegation.
On Tuesday, Jaishankar was welcomed by a senior Pakistan foreign ministry official, Ilyas Nizami, who was earlier political counsellor at the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi. In the evening, Jaishankar met Pakistan PM Sharif at a dinner hosted for the visiting dignitaries, and video clips of the event showed them shaking hands and exchanging a few words. Jaishankar will participate in the sessions on Wednesday.
There is a sense of expectation here in Islamabad, on whether his visit will herald a new beginning, overcoming the souring of ties between the two countries over the terror attacks and the abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir.
Earlier this month, Jaishankar had kept a window open, as he said he was “planning” for his visit to Pakistan. “In my business, you plan for everything that you are going to do, and for a lot of things that you are not going to do, and which could happen also, you plan for that as well,” he had said.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said: “He is a guest of Pakistan. Pakistan has welcomed all leaders who have decided to come to attend this conference, and Pakistan will demonstrate its traditional hospitality to all guests, including the Minister for External Affairs of India.”
Asked if there was a window of opportunity for a bilateral conversation on the sidelines, she said, “There are no such plans.”
She said that Islamabad, as the host of the SCO meeting, would work towards finding solutions to global challenges. “Pakistan is currently the chair of the heads of government of SCO, and has a charter according to which the heads of government focus on economic, trade, cultural connectivity and climate change matters, and this would be the agenda of tomorrow’s conference for which our national coordinators have been meeting and trying to find consensus over a declaration which will be adopted tomorrow,” she said.
During an interaction with Indian journalists, when Pakistan’s Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal was asked whether Pakistan is going to propose a meeting between Jaishankar and Pakistan’s leaders, he said, “We are the hosts, we cannot propose a meeting.” “When it comes to pointing fingers, both countries have enough ammunition to point fingers at each other, and therefore, I think we need to move beyond pointing fingers, and we need to think in terms of the more than one-and-a-half billion people who live in this region… SAARC is dysfunctional. The European Union is not dysfunctional. GCC is not dysfunctional. ASEAN is not dysfunctional. SAARC just happens to be dysfunctional and I always say to my Indian friends, if India only had one fourth the heart of its geography, there would be no problem.”
Meanwhile, facing protests by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party PTI, the Pakistani establishment is taking no chances. Islamabad feels like a fortress on the eve of the SCO meeting. The streets are teeming with security personnel, all markets and offices have been closed. The government has announced a three-day public holiday in Islamabad.
According to the interior ministry, Pakistan Army troops are responsible for the security of the capital’s ‘Red Zone’, including the Parliament, a diplomatic enclave, and the venue where most meetings will happen.
The almost 400-km motorway connecting Lahore to Islamabad has been sanitised, following likely protests by PTI supporters. After Khan called for a protest on October 15, violent clashes between his party supporters and the security personnel have put Pakistan on edge.
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar being welcomed upon his arrival in Islamabad, Pakistan, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. Jaishankar will take part in SCO Council of Heads of Government Meeting. (PTI) 
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