Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari made the announcement on Thursday that he would travel to India next month to attend the SCO foreign ministers meeting in Goa.
“Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will be leading the Pakistan delegation to the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) being held on May 4-5, 2023, in Goa, India,” Foreign Office spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahrah Baloch said in a weekly media briefing.
“Our participation in the meeting reflects Pakistan’s commitment to the SCO Charter and processes as well as the importance that Pakistan accords to the region in its foreign policy priorities,” the official added.
After Nawaz Sharif in 2014, Mr. Zardari’s trip to India will mark the first by a Pakistani leader.
The invitation was made in January to SCO members, including the new foreign minister of China, Qin Gang, and the foreign minister of Pakistan, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. India presently holds the SCO president.
“We currently hold the SCO presidency. We issue invitations to all SCO nations, including Pakistan, as is customary. During a news conference in February, Arindam Bagchi, the official spokeswoman for the Ministry of External Affairs, stated, “We expect them all to attend the events.”
After the 2019 terror attack in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, carried out by terrorists backed by Pakistan, and India’s subsequent surgical strikes on terrorist training facilities in Pakistan’s Balakot, relations between India and Pakistan came under significant strain.
After India stated in August 2019 that it will revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s special powers and split the state into Union territories, relations between the two countries further deteriorated.
Russia, China, India, and Pakistan are all members of the SCO, a regional political and security organisation. The gathering of foreign ministers will take place in Goa.
India joined the SCO as a full member on June 9, 2017. There are six conversation partners: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. There are four Observer States: Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia.
A powerful regional force with eight members, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was founded more than 20 years ago with the intention of fostering political, military, and economic cooperation among its members. It accounts for 25% of the world’s GDP and roughly 42% of the world’s population.
