New Delhi: India's External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar, will travel to Pakistan later this month to attend a key meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). This will be the first visit by an Indian External Affairs Minister to Pakistan in nine years, following Sushma Swaraj's trip in 2015.
Jaishankar will lead India's delegation to the SCO Council of Heads of Government meeting, which is scheduled to take place in Islamabad on October 15 and 16. According to External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, the visit is specifically for the summit and will not involve bilateral talks.
Tensions between India and Pakistan have been high since the Pulwama terrorist attack in 2019, followed by India's Balakot airstrikes, and further worsened after India removed Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Despite these tensions, Jaishankar will attend the meeting in Pakistan, which had earlier invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the event in August.
While speaking at the United Nations recently, Jaishankar highlighted Pakistan's policy of cross-border terrorism and criticized its economic struggles, referring to it as a country that made "disastrous choices."
This visit is seen as significant, as it's the first high-level interaction between the two countries in years, despite strained relations.