Pak skips SCO military medicine meet, attends only dinner

Pakistan gave a miss to the two-day military medicine conference of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) held here but its representatives attended a dinner related to the event on Thursday evening.

"The Pakistani representatives gave a miss to the two-day military medicine conference of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and attended only the dinner held yesterday in Delhi," Army sources said.

Diplomatic sources had yesterday stated that after missing the first day of the conference, Pakistan had decided to send two representatives to the meet.

"Two Pakistani representatives will attend the second SCO medicine conference tomorrow and they also attended dinner hosted by organisers today evening," diplomatic sources had stated.

The representatives who attended the dinner included the Air Advisor of the Pakistani Embassy in India.

Pakistan, repeatedly snubbed by the world community for internationalising the Kashmir issue, skipped the conference hosted by India for the SCO member states.

Defence Ministry officials confirmed that Pakistan was invited to the event. "Being a member of SCO, Pakistan was invited to the event," said a Defence official.

The Ministry of External Affairs echoed similar sentiments and said that Pakistan did not participate in the first day of the two-day conference.

"As far as I know, they were invited. But they did not participate in the meeting today," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said on Thursday.

The military medicine conference was attended by about 27 international and 40 Indian delegates. This was the first military cooperation event being hosted by India after it joined SCO in June 2017.