Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will go to Pakistan to attend a summit Tuesday, first such go to in practically a decade.
Jaishankar will journey to Islamabad for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit to “represent India at the meeting,” in accordance with studies from the Foreign Ministry.
Both arch-rivals have acknowledged that no bilateral talks are deliberate and Jaishankar’s go to will strictly adhere to the summit’s agenda.
The two nuclear-armed nations are bitter adversaries, having fought a number of wars since their partition in 1947 following British colonial rule.
The SCO includes China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus – with 16 extra international locations affiliated as observers or “dialogue partners.”
The group is typically considered as a substitute for the Western-dominated army alliance, NATO. While the SCO has a mandate to debate safety, the Islamabad summit is because of give attention to commerce, humanitarian and cultural points.
The final Indian overseas minister to go to Pakistan was Sushma Swaraj in 2015 and that very same yr Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a shock go to to Lahore.
However, relations between the 2 nations have worsened since 2019, following India’s determination to revoke the autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir, prompting Pakistan to droop bilateral commerce and downgrade diplomatic ties with New Delhi.
The Himalayan area, residence to a long-running and lethal insurgency in opposition to Indian rule, is split between the 2 international locations and claimed by each international locations in full.
In 2023, Pakistan’s former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari attended an SCO assembly in India, the place he and Jaishankar had a public dispute, however no bilateral discussions occurred.
Source: www.dailysabah.com