Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the foreign minister of Pakistan, arrived in India on Thursday in order to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s crucial multilateral summit in Goa on May 4 and 5.
The Pakistani delegation to the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which has its headquarters in Beijing, is being led by Bhutto Zardari, who will be the first foreign minister to visit India since 2011.
According to the Foreign Office (FO), Jaishankar, the external affairs minister of India, the SCO’s current chair, extended the invitation to the Pakistan Foreign Minister to attend the SCO-CFM.
According to Duniya TV, Bhutto Zardari received special permission from the Indian civil aviation authority to use Indian airspace at Pakistan’s request.
According to Pakistan, the Foreign Minister of that country would not hold any meeting with the Foreign Minister of India.
As the first visit by a Pakistani Foreign Minister since Hina Rabbani Khar went to India in July 2011 for peace talks, the visit is very symbolic.
The FO also stated that the CFM would finalise the agenda and decisions to be adopted by the 17th SCO Council of Heads of State Meeting scheduled to take place in New Delhi on July 3 and 4, in addition to discussing significant regional and international issues and signing some institutional documents.
The CFM will also see the ratification of memorandums of understanding with five nations, including Bahrain, Kuwait, the Maldives, Myanmar, and the UAE, to become SCO dialogue partners. China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and India are SCO members in addition to Pakistan.