While it is believed that the Prime Minister will likely skip the event, it will be interesting to see if he would depute a minister to represent India and attend the event…reports Asian Lite News
As Pakistan gears up to host the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, reports are emerging that the country has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with other world leaders for the international event.
Pakistan is slated to host the SCO leaders for the Council of Heads of Government (CHG) in-person meeting in October this year.
While it is believed that the Prime Minister will likely skip the event, it will be interesting to see if he would depute a minister to represent India and attend the event.
“Pakistan has invited Indian PM Narendra Modi and other member states to visit Islamabad for the SCO meeting. Being a host, this is a formal invitation and part of the process in practice by the host country to invite all member states to attend the meeting,” sources in the Foreign Office said.
Islamabad is scheduled to host the meeting on October 15-16, since it holds the rotating chairmanship of the CHG, the second highest decision-making body in the Eurasian group after the Council of Heads of State.
Prime Minister Modi has been regular at such international events since assuming office in 2014, however, he skipped the CHG meeting in Kazakhstan as it clashed with the Parliament session of July this year. External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar had delivered the remarks on behalf of PM Modi at the SCO Summit being held under Kazakhstan’s Presidency in Astana.
It is pertinent to note that the Prime Minister has also skipped the CHG meeting in Kazakhstan this year as well since it clashed with the July session of the parliament. Last year, External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar attended the CHG meeting in Bishkek. It is also not clear if India will be allowed to address the meeting virtually if none of the representatives attend the meeting in Pakistan.
Both India and Pakistan are full-time members of the group led by Russia and China. However, India remains wary of the group’s anti-west platform. In light of this, India has never endorsed China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the SCO joint statement. Despite all this, SCO is the only multilateral forum where India and Pakistan have managed to work together.
Pakistan’s then-Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari visited India last year, for a SCO foreign ministers’ meeting. One of the main reasons why both nations managed to cooperate with each other in these summits is because the SCO charter doesn’t allow member-states to raise bilateral issues.
Multiple factors can lead to India skipping the event altogether. One of them is the recent terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. Meanwhile, since 2019, Pakistan has expressed discontent over the abrogation of Article 370. The last Indian foreign minister who visited Pakistan was Late Sushma Swaraj, who went to Islamabad in 2015.
It is expected that PM Modi may depute a ministerial delegation to represent India as the SCO meeting does not require heads of state to participate. In the past as well, SCO CHG meetings have been represented by Indian ministerial appointments and the same is expected to come into force this time as well.
Analysts are wary about the possibility of PM Modi visiting Islamabad.
“Extending invitations to PM Modi and all other member states is a compulsive protocol any host country follows. Pakistan has done the same. I do not see this as a political stunt. However, I do not see PM Modi landing in Islamabad,” said political analyst Kamran Yousaf.
“Indian government’s policy for the past decade has kept any initiatives to move towards normalisation of relations with Pakistan, consistently on the back burner,” Yousaf claimed.
Barring SCO, the two nations have refrained from initiating any engagements on various platforms and have raised questions and concerns against each other.
The other reason why both sides have been able to attend the SCO meetings and manage to work together on this particular platform is that the Organization’s charter does not allow member-states to raise bilateral issues and keeps its focus on regional matters.
The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan joined the bloc in 2017.
The SCO is pivotal in addressing regional security concerns, including terrorism, extremism, and separatism. It conducts joint military exercises and intelligence sharing among member states.
The SCO promotes economic cooperation through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It seeks to enhance trade, energy partnerships, and infrastructure development across Eurasia. It also provides a platform for member states to align on major international issues, often advocating for a multipolar world order and challenging Western dominance in global affairs.
The 23rd SCO Summit was held on July 4, 2023, hosted by India via video conference.
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