Outside of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, which External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is expected to attend, Pakistan has ruled out holding bilateral discussions with India. Jaishankar had similarly taken a same stance, insisting that his travel was intended for a multilateral occasion. Jaishankar will lead a delegation to Islamabad next week.
This visit is significant since it will be the first by an Indian Minister of External Affairs to Pakistan in nine years, since Sushma Swaraj’s visit in 2015.
Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, when asked about Jaishankar’s visit, said, “I would like you to refer to the remarks made by the Minister for External Affairs on October 5, in which he maintained that his visit was meant for a multilateral event and not for discussing Pakistan-India relations. These remarks are self-explanatory.”
When Jaishankar visited Islamabad on October 15 and 16, he made it clear that discussions about India-Pakistan issues were off the agenda.
Addressing a gathering, Jaishankar said, “I am scheduled to go to Pakistan in the middle of this month, and that is for a meeting of the SCO Heads of Government… I am not going there to discuss India-Pakistan relations. I am going there to be a good member of the SCO, but you know, since I am a courteous and civil person, I will behave myself.”
Following the repeal of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, Islamabad severed diplomatic ties with New Delhi, bringing the relationship between India and Pakistan to an all-time low.
After the Pulwama terror assault in February 2019, the Indian Air Force targeted a Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist training centre in Balakot, Pakistan, further straining ties between the two countries. More than forty soldiers were slain in the Pulwama terror incident.
