Indian FM Jaishankar to visit Pakistan on October 15

Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will visit Pakistan on October 15 to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.
Indian MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal during a press conference on Friday said, "EAM Jaishankar will lead a delegation to Pakistan for the SCO summit which will be held in Islamabad on 15th and 16th October."

Pakistan had invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the summit. Pakistan holds the rotating chairmanship of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of Government (CHG) and in that capacity, will be hosting the two-day in-person SCO Heads of Governments Meeting in October.

The Islamabad summit meeting will be preceded by a ministerial meeting and several rounds of senior officials' meetings focused on financial, economic, socio-cultural, and humanitarian cooperation among the SCO member states.

The SCO, comprising India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, is an influential economic and security bloc that has emerged as one of the largest trans-regional international organisations.

As part of this key regional group, both Pakistan and India can hold summit meetings.

India hosted the SCO Summit last year, organised in a virtual mode, and attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif through a video link.

However, Pakistan's then foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari visited India in May 2023 to attend the in-person two-day meeting of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers in Goa, which was the first Pakistani foreign minister to visit India in almost 12 years.

Islamabad and New Delhi have a long history of strained relations, primarily due to the Kashmir issue.