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| Bilawal Bhutto will go to India to attend the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization |
According to the Foreign Office of Pakistan, Federal Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting to be held in India next month.
It should be noted that this meeting is being held on May 4 and 5 in Goa, India, in which the Pakistani delegation will be led by the Foreign Minister.
Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said during the weekly briefing that "Pakistan's participation in this meeting reflects Pakistan's commitment to the Charter and work of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the importance that Pakistan attaches to its foreign policy priorities." Gives the region'.
This will be the first visit of a Pakistani foreign minister to India after a gap of 12 years. Earlier, former foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar visited India in 2011.
It should be noted that after the year 2014, no Pakistani leader went on an official visit to India. In 2014, Nawaz Sharif came to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister.
Bilawal Bhutto was invited to attend this meeting by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of India in January.
Pakistan and India have been permanent members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) since 2017. According to experts, inviting member countries to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is one of the duties of the host country, so inviting Pakistan to participate in it is not an unusual thing.
Speaking to the BBC, Professor Ajay Darshan Behera at the MMAJ Academy of International Studies said, "India has a responsibility to invite everyone to a multilateral forum like the SCO." It's not like we don't invite Pakistan's foreign minister because we have differences.
Earlier, it was expected that Shahbaz Sharif and Narendra Modi would meet at the SCO summit in Samarkand in 2022, but it did not happen.
On the occasion of the United Arab Emirates this year, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in an interview given to Al Arabiya said that India and Pakistan should resolve all their issues through dialogue.
Shahbaz Sharif said that Pakistan should hold talks on all other issues including the disputed region of Kashmir.
He said, "My message to the Indian leadership and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to sit at the table and hold serious and sincere negotiations to resolve the serious disputes between us, for example, Kashmir."
However, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif's office issued a statement after the interview saying that talks could only take place if India restores the special status of administered Kashmir, which was revoked in August 2019.
After years of tension between the two countries, Pakistan's offer of dialogue was seen positively.
This is not an indication of back-channel communication.
Prof. Radha Kumar, who was one of the central government's negotiators in Kashmir in 2010, says India's invitation to Pakistan for the SCO meeting should be seen as a routine move.
He said that it would be premature to draw any conclusion from a mere invitation.
He said that people might be trying to see this as an indication of back-channel talks between the two countries, but "I think it is too early to say whether back-channel talks are going on, but the current govt. And it is a bit difficult to draw a normal conclusion in the context of the current situation.'
She added that I would say wait a little longer. Do not draw any conclusions from this invitation at this time.
Although observers say that the full explanation needs to be waited for, India's leading English newspaper 'The Hindu' has written in its editorial that if Pakistan comes forward to improve relations, India should also extend its hand.
"If indeed Islamabad accepts the invitation to the SCO or Pakistan comes forward with a proposal to restore the missions in the two capitals, where there have been no ambassadors since 2019, it would be hoped that New Delhi will give a positive answer.
The newspaper added that at a time when the Indian government is advising Russia and Ukraine on 'negotiation and diplomacy' and urging them to talk to the Taliban with 'pragmatism', It would seem a bit counterintuitive not to take steps to enhance regional stability, that too in a year when India's role as a 'statesman' is being highlighted.
If you get an invitation, you should go to India.
Abdul Basit, the former high commissioner of Pakistan in India, when contacted by the BBC, said that he does not see that there will be any improvement in the relations between Pakistan and India despite the participation in the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization until the foreign ministers of the two countries. There is no bilateral meeting in between.
Abdul Basit said that Pakistan should go to India for the meeting of this organization.
In January of this year, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had called the Prime Minister of India 'the butcher of Gujarat' and this statement was deeply saddened in India and especially in the Bharatiya Janata Party and India officially condemned this statement. was condemned.
It should be noted that it is in the agenda of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that mutual disputes will not be discussed in the meeting of this organization.
India, Pakistan: Conflicts, Bitterness, and Warmth
Relations between Pakistan and India have been strained for a long time, but there have been occasional thaws between the two. has come
In February 2019, a suicide attack on an Indian army convoy took place in Pulwama in Indian-administered Kashmir, in which around 40 Indian soldiers were killed.
The attack was followed by a retaliatory airstrike by India near Balakot in Pakistan, which it said carried out a 'surgical strike', destroying the hideouts of 'terrorists'. However, the very next day, Pakistan Air Force shot down an Indian Air Force plane during a retaliatory operation.
An Indian pilot, Abhinandan Vartaman, was also captured by Pakistani forces after his plane crashed, he was released by the then Prime Minister Imran Khan within days. The Pulwama attack and the subsequent arrest of the Indian pilot further soured the already bitter relationship.
Subsequently, on August 5, 2019, India revoked the special status of its administered Kashmir, which was strongly condemned by Pakistan and termed the move as a violation of United Nations resolutions.
Thus, while in February 2019, relations between India and Pakistan were tense militarily, in August 2019 and thereafter, these relations became tense diplomatically as well.
But in 2021, in a rare meeting between military officials of the two countries, it was decided to abide by the 2003 ceasefire agreement on the Line of Control in Kashmir.
In the middle of March of the same year, Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa talked about solving the Kashmir issue by burying past conflicts in a 'peaceful way'.
After that, when Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan was diagnosed with Coronavirus, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent him a message of speedy recovery.
On the death of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's mother in the year 2020, Narendra Modi wrote a condolence letter to him, while in December 2022, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif sent a condolence message to him on the occasion of the death of Narendra Modi's mother.
Even after the floods in Pakistan last year, a message of sympathy was sent by the Indian Prime Minister.