India’s international minister S Jaishankar will attend a gathering of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Pakistan this month, his ministry has introduced.
This would be the first go to by a excessive rating Indian minister to Pakistan in almost a decade.
The journey comes after Mr Jaishankar’s Pakistani counterpart attended the same assembly of international ministers from the SCO in India final yr – he was the primary senior Pakistani politician to go to since 2011.
Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours have been tense for years they usually have fought three wars since they grew to become impartial nations in 1947 – two of them over the Himalayan area of Kashmir.
The SCO is a political union of nations fashioned to debate safety and financial issues in Central Asia.
The organisation was created by China, Russia and 4 Central Asian nations in 2001 as a countermeasure to restrict the affect of Western alliances akin to Nato.
India and Pakistan joined the group in 2017.
Whereas India chaired the SCO in 2023, Pakistan might be internet hosting this yr’s summit from 15 October to 16 October.
At a press briefing on Friday, India’s international ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal confirmed that Mr Jaishankar will lead the Indian delegation to Pakistan.
The final time an Indian international minister visited the nation was in 2015, when Sushma Swaraj attended a security conference in Islamabad and held uncommon talks with Pakistani officers.
Days later, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi additionally made a surprise trip to Lahore the place he met then Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Ties between India and Pakistan have all the time been strained however they hit a brand new low in 2019, when India launched strikes in Pakistani territory, following a militant assault on Indian troops in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Each India and Pakistan declare Kashmir in full, however management solely elements of it. Separatist insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir has led to 1000’s of deaths over three many years. India accuses Pakistan of supporting insurgents however its neighbour denies this.
A thaw of relations appeared in sight final yr when Pakistan’s International Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari visited the Indian state of Goa for a SCO assembly.
However Mr Zardari mentioned his go to was “focussed solely on the SCO” and didn’t maintain any direct talks with Mr Jaishankar throughout his journey.
In an interview with the BBC at the moment, he said that the onus was on India to restart peace talks between the 2 nations.
