External Affairs Minister Dr. S Jaishankar will lead the Indian delegation’s visit to Pakistan to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) ‘Heads of Government’ (HoG) meeting in Islamabad on October 15-16, the Ministry of External Affairs announced on Friday (October 4, 2024).
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Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu is also expected to visit India from October 7 to October 10, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal announced in a weekly press briefing. While Mr. Muizzu will arrive in India on October 6 late evening, this marks the first bilateral visit by the President to India. Mr. Muizzu will also visit Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Earlier, The Hindu reported that the External Affairs Minister was likely to be New Delhi’s choice to attend the summit virtually, or in-person.
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No Indian Minister has attended a multilateral meeting in Pakistan since Home Minister Rajnath Singh visited Islamabad for the SAARC Home Minister’s meeting in August 2016. The last time an External Affairs Minister visited Pakistan was Sushma Swaraj in December 2015.
After terror attacks on the Pathankot airbase and the Uri Army camp in 2016, India called off the SAARC Summit in Pakistan and has refused to attend any subsequent meetings in Pakistan. The only exceptions made by the government in the last few years is for the inauguration of the Kartarpur corridor, where it sent two Union Ministers.
While Mr. Modi is technically the Head of Government, both India and Pakistan decided when they joined the regional grouping including China, Russia and Central Asia, that their elected leaders would participate in the Heads of State summit, alongside Presidents of the other countries and not the HoG. As a result, Mr. Modi has thus far deputed the Vice-President or External Affairs Minister to attend SCO HoG conferences.