Roving Periscope: Pak FM Bilawal to lead a ‘delegation’ to SCO meet in India

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the grandson of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who, in 1972, had vowed to fight the war against India for a “thousand years,” will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers’ meeting at Goa next month.

India and Pakistan became permanent members of the Beijing-based SCO in 2017.

Just like his hanged grandfather, who was a former President and Prime Minister of Pakistan, and mother Benazir Bhutto, a slain PM, Bilawal has often been spewing venom against India on different national and international forums. In particular, his rhetorical tirades against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and on Jammu and Kashmir issue have drawn flak in his own country.

Amid skepticism over whether he would, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahrah Balock announced in Islamabad on Thursday that its Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari would, after all, participate in the SCO meeting.

He will lead the Pakistan delegation to the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) being held on May 4-5, 2023, in Goa, India, she said, ending weeks-long speculation if he would attend the conference in person.

She said Bilawal would attend the meeting at the invitation of his Indian counterpart, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

“Our participation in the meeting reflects Pakistan’s commitment to the SCO Charter and processes and the importance that Pakistan accords to the region in its foreign policy priorities,” Baloch said.

It would be the highest-level visit to India by any Pakistani leader in recent years and a possible opportunity to break the ice between the two nations when India’s economy is ascending to dizzying heights and that of Pakistan sinking to the nadir.

The ties between India and Pakistan came under severe strain after New Delhi’s warplanes pounded a Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist training camp in Pakistan’s Balakot in February 2019 after the Pulwama terror attack which left nearly 40 Indian security personnel dead.

Their bilateral relations nosedived after India announced the withdrawal of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and the bifurcation of the erstwhile state into two Union Territories—Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh—in August 2019.

Bilawal’s India visit is coming at a time when a bankrupt Pakistan is facing its worst existential crisis because of unprecedented socio-economic, religious, and political upheavals on all fronts. Unable to get a fresh IMF bailout, it is virtually a failed state, a basket case, and may collapse any day now. The Islamic nation, infested with a myriad of terrorist gangs under the control of its radicalized Pakistan Army, is also sitting on a civil war and sees its own creation, the Taliban, as a new Frankenstein.

How times have turned and the wheels moved back…

When India became a nuclear power in 1974, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto vowed to make Pakistan also a nuclear-armed state, even if it had to “eat grass.” Well, aided by a global nuclear thief, Dr. Abdul Qadir Khan, Pakistan did manage to become a nuclear-armed state. Now, as the UN said recently, four million Pakistanis are threatened with starvation, amid various scarcities, food riots, etc.

It would, however, be interesting to know if Bilawal will actually manage to lead a ‘delegation’ to India—or would come almost alone to save on air tickets!

For, only on April 13,  Bilawal’s deputy and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar was left embarrassed during a bilateral meeting with the Russian delegation in Samarkand.

She was left mumbling when asked about the absence of her team, revealing the impact of Pakistan’s bankrupt economy even on its foreign affairs. Pakistan is selling its assets abroad and has even closed down some embassies, leaving a large number of its staff unpaid for months.

“Where’s the rest of your team?” asked Russian FM Sergey Lavrov to Rabbani, who sat across the long diplomatic table, with only one state official on her right, and empty chairs thereafter.

“The rest of my team..? We have a small team, and the rest will come. We are traveling with a small team and we have a small embassy,” said Khar.

Thereafter, she said sheepishly, “We’re not a big power like Russia” to which Russian FM Sergey Lavrov replied saying such things don’t matter to ‘friends’.

Ironically, the bilateral meeting was held on the sidelines of the Samarkand Summit on April 13, for countries neighboring Afghanistan to discuss the situation in the Taliban-ruled country.