Pakistan to invite Indian Prime Minister Modi to October SCO Summit

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif has confirmed that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be invited to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in October.

As per the details, the summit to be held in Islamabad will be a meeting of heads of government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, in which Pakistan is currently the rotating chairman of the political and security bloc.

In an interview to a private news channel, Asif emphasized that inviting Modi was a procedural requirement, reflecting the inclusive nature of the SCO. “Yes, of course. There should be no doubt about that,” Asif said, stressing that the host country of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit does not have the authority to deny invitations to member states. exclude

This announcement has been made after India’s invitation to Pakistan’s former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in 2023. Asif noted that the reciprocal nature of such invitations is in line with the SCO Protocol, which mandates equal treatment of all member states. “If any country imposes such conditions, I think they are inappropriate and SCO will not accept it,” he added.

The upcoming summit will be a major diplomatic event given the historically strained relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors. India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars, including two over the disputed Kashmir region, have seen rare high-level visits between the countries. Bhutto Zardari’s visit to India in 2023 was notable as it was the first visit by a senior Pakistani official after Nawaz Sharif’s participation in Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in 2014 and Sartaj Aziz’s participation in the Heart of Asia Conference in Amritsar in 2016.

While violence in Kashmir has recently subsided, diplomatic engagement between the two countries has stalled, with no significant talks on major issues in recent years.

An invitation to Modi for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit could serve as a possible avenue for renewed dialogue between the two countries.