‘Neither India nor Pakistan has asked for a bilateral meeting at SCO’

File photo of Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar. , Photo courtesy: Reuters

Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said neither India nor Pakistan has requested for a bilateral meeting when Foreign Minister S Jaishankar arrives in Islamabad for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Heads of Government meeting on October 15-16.

He said the government planned to welcome Mr Jaishankar with “full protocols” as was Pakistan’s duty as a “good host”, comments that followed Mr Jaishankar’s comments last week that He will attend the meeting as a “member in good standing”. SCO”

While Mr Jaishankar and other leaders of the 10-member SCO, including Iranian Vice President Mohammadreza Aref and the prime ministers of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, are expected to reach Islamabad on Tuesday, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Chinese Premier Li Kiang will arrive a day early on Monday for a bilateral meeting with the Pakistani leadership.

Although the External Affairs Ministry has not confirmed which leaders Mr Jaishankar will hold bilateral talks with during the visit, all eyes will be on any meeting with the Chinese leader ahead of the BRICS summit in Russia on October 22-24. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be face to face, speculations are rife that they will meet to resolve the military standoff along the Line of Actual Control.

With neither side pinning much hope for the India-Pakistan meeting in Islamabad, experts are playing down the impact of Mr Jaishankar’s visit, the first by an Indian foreign minister in nearly a decade, on bilateral ties. In 2015, former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj visited Pakistan for the Heart of Asia conference, but the visit also saw a bilateral meeting and an announcement of revival of comprehensive bilateral dialogue, which came to a halt a month after the Pathankot attack. Was. Terrorist attacks.

“India’s External Affairs Minister has not asked for any meeting, and we have also not requested a bilateral meeting. He will come as a guest to the SCO, and multilateral issues will be discussed,” Mr Dar told the media while briefing the press about the arrangements for the SCO meeting, adding that it was the first such major summit in Pakistan. It was a multilateral programme. Almost three decades.

In March this year, Mr Dar had said Pakistan would “seriously examine” whether to restart trade ties with India, which have been suspended since 2019, but the move made no headway. Asked by journalists on Sunday whether the issue could be raised during or on the sidelines of the SCO meeting, Mr Dar said that while Pakistan is discussing initiatives like the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Pakistan-Afghanistan-India) energy pipeline, And separately with some SCO members, these were not part of the SCO discussions.

“In the broader context, we talk about connectivity and road and rail connectivity bilaterally with many SCO members. But the mandate of the SCO will be multilateral, and the agenda is set,” he said.

The Pakistan government is concerned about the security situation, especially the opposition, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party (PTI), whose leader former Prime Minister Imran Khan is in jail, has announced a major protest in the capital city on 15 October, As long as the government allows Mr Khan to meet supporters and lawyers.

Last week, thousands of PTI supporters had gathered at D-Chowk in Islamabad to protest against the release of Mr Khan, accused in several cases, and clashed with the police there, raising fears of a repeat incident. Ahead of the SCO, Pakistani security officials said more than 9,000 policemen were on duty and protests had been banned in Islamabad, Karachi and other cities.

In an unexpected broadside, a senior Pakistani minister appeared to blame India for the PTI protests.

Pakistan’s Minister for Planning Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal said on Saturday, “Pakistan’s neighbor is not able to digest the fact that we are going to host the SCO summit, so they have joined hands with PTI to create disruption. ” Although he did not take the name directly. India.

The Foreign Ministry did not issue any reaction to the statement.