Pakistan foreign min Bilawal Bhutto to attend SCO meet in India

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Islamabad: Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and his delegation will attend the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) foreign ministers meeting that will be held in the western Indian state of Goa on 4 and 5 May.

“Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will be leading the Pakistan delegation to the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) being held on May 4-5, 2023, in Goa, India,” said Pakistan foreign ministry spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch during a weekly media briefing in Islamabad on Thursday.

She further said that Bilawal Bhutto would be attending the SCO meeting at the invitation of the current chairman of SCO CFM, Minister for External Affairs of India Dr S Jaishankar.

“​Our participation in the meeting reflects Pakistan’s commitment to the SCO Charter and processes and the importance that Pakistan accords to the region in its foreign policy priorities,” Baloch said.

“Pakistan continues to participate in SCO meetings in keeping with our longstanding commitment to SCO,” she added.

The invitation from Jaishankar was sent through the Indian High Commission in Islamabad for Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to come to Goa in the first week of May for the SCO Foreign Ministers’ meeting.

This will be the first visit by a key Pakistani leader to India since former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif travelled to New Delhi for the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.

Also, Bilawal Bhutto will be the Pakistan foreign minister who will be visiting India after Hina Rabbani Khar’s trip in July 2011.

India SCO presidency

India has been a full-fledged member state of SCO since 2017. However, it was in 2022, it assumed the rotating presidency of the SCO at the summit held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

India will host the next summit of the Council of heads of State this year.

Who are SCO members?

The SCO currently has eight member countries — India, China, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

It has four observer states who are interested in acceding to full membership. They are — Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia.

SCO also has six “Dialogue Partners” — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkiye.

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Umang Sharma

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