Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to visit Pakistan to participate in the SCO summit on 15 & 16 October: Indian Foreign Ministry Spokesman

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD, Oct 04 (SABAH): Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will visit Pakistan to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit later this month, the Indian foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday.

“The external affairs minister will lead a delegation to Pakistan to participate in the SCO Summit which will be held on October 15 and 16,” Randhir Jaiswal said at a weekly press briefing, but did not say if Jaishankar would meet any Pakistani leaders on the sidelines of the SCO Summit.

This will be the first visit by an Indian foreign minister to Pakistan in nearly a decade.

Pakistan had extended invitations to all the government heads of the member states, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for the upcoming SCO-CHG meeting in Islamabad, Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch had confirmed.

“Islamabad has also received some confirmations for the moot to be hosted by Pakistan on October 15-16,” Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said addressing a news briefing.

Last year in May, the then-foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari visited India to attend the two-day meeting of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers.

It was the first visit to India by a top Pakistani official since then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif attended Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swearing-in in 2014.