Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Coming as he does on the orders of the all-powerful Army, “the Establishment”—or as many scared Pakistanis identify it as Naamaaloom (You Know Who!), Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has clarified that there is no chance of bilateral talks with India during his visit to Goa in May to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Council of Foreign Ministers (SCO-CFM) meeting.
In any case, many in India seemed prepared for the routine Bhutto-Zardari rhetoric on Jammu and Kashmir even at the SCO-CFM meeting—and they see it as the ‘real agenda’ behind his Goa visit.
“This visit shouldn’t be seen in terms of bilateral talks,” he said on Thursday in Islamabad.
Bhutto-Zardari’s visit to India is the first by any Pakistani Foreign Minister since Hina Rabbani Khar—who is, ironically, his deputy now!—came way back in 2011.
Responding to a question on Dunya News on Thursday, soon after Islamabad announced his Goa visit, he said his participation in the SCO-CFM meeting in India reflected Islamabad’s commitment to the Charter of the SCO and should not be seen in terms of bilateral ties.
“We are committed to the SCO charter and this visit should not be seen as a bilateral one but in the context of the SCO,” he said.
In Islamabad, Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that Bhutto-Zardari will lead the Pakistani delegation to the SCO-CFM meeting on May 4 and 5 in Goa.
During a weekly presser on Thursday, Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch stated that Bhutto-Zardari is attending the SCO-CFM meeting at the invitation of India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.
“Our participation at the meeting reflects Pakistan’s continued commitment to the SCO charter and process and the importance that Pakistan accords to the region in its foreign policy priorities,” the spokesperson reiterated.
India has formally sent invitations to all members of the SCO, including Pakistan and China, for the upcoming foreign ministers’ meeting.
Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov are also likely to attend the meeting.
India took over the chairmanship of the SCO in September 2022 and will be holding key ministerial meetings and the Summit this year.
Relations between New Delhi and Islamabad have mostly been precarious for decades because of cross-border sponsored terrorism from Pakistan which has also been seeking since 2019 the restoration of the “special status” (Article 370) for the former state of Jammu and Kashmir for resuming any talks.
The 20-year-old SCO’s members are Russia, India, China, Pakistan, and the four Central Asian countries—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Iran is the latest country to become a member and will, under the Indian Presidency, for the first time attend its meeting as a full-fledged member.
The last meeting of the SCO was held at Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in 2022.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the SCO Summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The 22nd Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO in September 2022, was the first in-person summit since the June 2019 meeting of the SCO leaders in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.