India to invite Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif to Goa for high-level SCO meet

Shehbaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, will be invited by India to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) conference in May of this yea, reports said. Invitations to the SCO summit in Goa were delivered to the foreign ministers of Pakistan and China on Wednesday, Bilawal Bhutto and Qin Gang.

The invites were delivered in accordance with the established procedure, however it is unknown whether Bilawal Bhutto and Qin Gang will attend.

𝐋𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐏𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟏

It will be the first such trip from Islamabad to India since 2011 if the Pakistani prime minister or foreign minister chooses to attend the meeting in person. In 2011, India was visited by Pakistan's then-foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar.

After India's warplanes attacked a Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist training camp in Pakistan's Balakot in response to the Pulwama terror attack in February 2019, relations between India and Pakistan became very strained.

After India stated in August 2019 that it will revoke Jammu and Kashmir's special powers and split the former state into Union regions, relations between the two countries further deteriorated.

𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐂𝐎

India is the current chair of nine-nation SCO. Later this year, the SCO foreign ministers' meeting is anticipated to take place in Goa.

The summit and important ministerial meetings will be held in Goa during the first week of May. India currently holds the chairmanship of the nine-member organisation, which it assumed last September. China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are also members of the SCO. Along with the other Central Asian nations, invitations have also been addressed to the foreign ministries of Russia and China.

Published on: Thursday, January 26, 2023, 02:08 PM IST