The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced on Friday that External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar will head the Indian delegation to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, which is scheduled to take place in Islamabad on October 15-16, 2024.
India Accepts Pakistan’s Invitation for SCO Summit
MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal confirmed India’s participation, stating, “EAM Jaishankar will lead a delegation to Pakistan to participate in the SCO summit.” The announcement followed a formal invitation extended by Pakistan in August for India’s attendance at the SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG) meeting.
In a media briefing on August 30, Jaiswal acknowledged the invitation from Islamabad but refrained from providing details at the time, saying, “We don’t have an update on that. We will let you know what the situation is later.”
Recent History of High-Level SCO Engagements
This visit follows Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s attendance at the SCO meeting in Goa in May 2023, marking the first visit by a Pakistani foreign minister to India in six years. The upcoming summit in Islamabad will be another significant diplomatic engagement between the two nations under the SCO framework.
The SCO, a permanent intergovernmental international organization, was established on June 15, 2001, in Shanghai by founding members China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan joined the group in 2017, and Iran became a full member in 2023.
Currently, the SCO has nine member states, three observer states (Afghanistan, Mongolia, and Belarus), and 14 dialogue partners, including countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE, and Nepal. The 2022 Samarkand SCO Summit initiated the process of raising Belarus’ status to that of a full member.
