Pakistan invites PM Modi for mid-Oct SCO meeting

NEW DELHI/Islamabad: Pakistan formally announced on Thursday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been invited to the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Islamabad in mid-October.

Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, at her weekly press briefing, said Islamabad had sent invitations to the heads of countries to participate in the meeting, Pakistani media reported.

“An invitation has also been sent to the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi,” she said, adding that some countries had already confirmed their participation in the meeting.

Pakistan holds the rotating chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG) and in that capacity, will be hosting the two-day in-person SCO Heads of Governments Meeting in October.

The Islamabad summit meeting will be preceded by a ministerial meeting and several rounds of senior officials’ meetings focused on financial, economic, socio-cultural, and humanitarian cooperation among the SCO member states.

The SCO, comprising India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, is an influential economic and security bloc that has emerged as one of the largest trans-regional international organisations.

As part of this key regional group, both Pakistan and India can hold summit meetings.

India hosted the SCO Summit last year, organised in a virtual mode, and attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif through a video link.

However, Pakistan’s then foreign 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. He was the first Pakistani foreign minister to have visited India in almost 12 years.

Islamabad and New Delhi have a long history of strained relations, primarily due to the Kashmir issue as well as the cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan.

India has maintained that it desires normal neighbourly relations with Pakistan while insisting that the onus is on Islamabad to create an environment that is free of terror and hostility for such an engagement.

Pakistan downgraded its ties with India after the Indian Parliament abrogated Article 370 on August 5, 2019. with agency inputs