Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif has been invited to the SCO Defense Ministers meeting to be held in April (Image: Twitter)
India had earlier invited Chief Justice and Foreign Minister of Pakistan for SCO ministerial meetings
India invited Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and Pakistan’s National Security Advisor Moeed Yusuf to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in New Delhi.
India holds the current presidency of the SCO which includes China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and will hold several meetings under its chairmanship.
People familiar with the development said that given the current domestic situation in Pakistan, the minister may attend the event virtually.
People familiar with the development said the Indian government shared the formal invitation with Pakistan’s Foreign Office on Tuesday. There was no immediate confirmation on whether the invitees would attend the event.
Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial was also invited earlier and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was also invited to attend the SCO Foreign Ministers’ meeting.
Justice Bandial opted out of the meeting and Justice Munib Akhtar recently attended the meeting through a video link.
The SCO foreign ministers meeting is to be held in Goa in May while the defense ministers meeting will be held in New Delhi in April. The SCO NSA meeting will be held later this month on March 29.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office said a decision on Bilawal’s visit would be taken at an appropriate time. If Bilawal attends the meeting, it will be the first visit from Islamabad to India since 2011. Hina Rabbani Khar was the last foreign minister to visit India in 2011.
Relations between India and Pakistan remain strained following the 2019 Pulwama attack, the 2016 Pathankot attack and the Uri attack, and its continued support to terrorists trying to destabilize peace in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan downgraded ties with India after the government abrogated Article 370, ending the special status for the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
India’s retaliation for the Pulwama attack, where it bombed terrorist positions in Balakot, also angered Islamabad, which further downgraded ties.
Bilawal and China’s Qin Gang are among foreign ministers of SCO nations invited by India for the summit in May. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has also been invited.
This will be the second time this year that Gang and Lavrov will visit India as they visited India during the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting.
(With inputs from Shalinder Vangu)
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