India invites Pakistan to SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting

New Delhi, INDIA: The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO), under the chairmanship of India, invited the member nations, which includes Pakistan as well, for the Defence Ministers’ meeting, scheduled to be held in New Delhi in April this year. However, the Indian Ministry of external affairs hasn’t received confirmation from Pakistan’s end over the invitation.

India has sent out invitations for the SCO defence ministers meeting of all the SCO member states, i.e. China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, along with the Pakistan Defence minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif.

In addition to this, India has sent an invitation to the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and the Chinese Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, for the SCO meeting to be held on May 4-5.

In his comments on the same, the spokesperson of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Arindam Bagchi, stated that “India is the SCO chair, and we will invite all SCO nations to the inter-governmental events.

Adding further, Bagchi stated that: Being the chair country, India has invited all the member nations, however, there’s no confirmation about the invitation being accepted by Pakistan. Neither do I follow every such small piece of information.”

Notably, India, under its chairmanship of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which began in September 2022, will be hosting a series of meetings this year. The SCO is a transregional organization formed to bolster economic relations and cooperation among its member nations. The organization operates according to a formulated calendar of activities, which includes Foreign Ministers’ meetings.

The relations between India and Pakistan have been distorted with regard to issues of cross-border terrorism from Pakistan and Islamabad seeking restoration of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, which belongs to India.