External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday that he is not going to Islamabad to discuss "India-Pakistan relations". He said his visit is about the SCO Summit 2024, which is taking place in the neighbouring country. The minister said that he will be traveling to Pakistan only to be a "good member of the SCO".
"Yes, I am scheduled to go to Pakistan in the middle of this month and that is for the meeting of the SCO –the heads of government meeting," Mr Jaishankar said while delivering the Sardar Patel Lecture on Governance, organized by IC Centre for Governance in New Delhi.
"I expect that there would be a lot of media interest because the very nature of the relationship is such and I think we will deal with it. But I do want to say it, I will be there for a multilateral event, I mean I am not going there to discuss India-Pakistan relations. I am going there to be a good member of the SCO. Since I am a courteous and civil person, I will behave myself accordingly," he underlined.
The External Affairs Minister highlighted that the SCO Summit is taking place in Islamabad this time, because, similar to India, Pakistan too, is a recent member of the bloc.
"Normally the Prime Minister goes to the high-level meeting, the heads of state, that's in line with the tradition. It so happens that the meeting is taking place in Pakistan, because, like us, they are a relatively recent member," Mr Jaishankar added.
On being asked about his planning before he heads to the summit, the EAM stated, "Of course, I am planning for it. In my business, you plan for everything that you are going to do, and for a lot of things that you are not going to do, and which could happen also, you plan for that as well."
On Friday, the MEA said Mr Jaishankar will be traveling to Pakistan to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit scheduled to take place in October.
On being asked about India's participation in the upcoming SCO Summit, the MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, "EAM Jaishankar will lead a delegation to Pakistan to participate in the SCO summit which will be held in Islamabad on October 15-16."
Earlier in August, India received an invitation from Pakistan for the SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG) in-person meeting.
In May 2023, Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari visited India for the SCO meeting in Goa. This was the first visit by a Foreign Minister of Pakistan to India in six years.
The SCO is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation established on June 15, 2001, in Shanghai by Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Its predecessor was the mechanism of the Shanghai Five. Currently, the SCO countries include nine member states: India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The SCO has three observer states: Afghanistan, Mongolia, and Belarus.
