Pakistan rules out bilateral talks with India during Jaishankar's visit

Pakistan on Monday ruled out talks with India on bilateral issues during the upcoming visit of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to Islamabad to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.

India on Friday announced that Jaishankar would lead a delegation to Pakistan to participate in the SCO summit in Islamabad. However, Jaishankar ruled out chances of bilateral talks during his visit to Pakistan.

Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said that Pakistan will host the 23rd Council of Heads of Government of the SCO member States from October 15 to 16 in Islamabad.

Responding to a query about the visit of Jaishankar and India-Pakistan ties, she said Pakistan has received an "intimation officially with regards to this visit" and it was ready to welcome all members.

"Regarding your question about bilateral meetings, I would like you to refer to the remarks made by the Indian Minister for External Affairs on 5th of October, in which he maintained that his visit was meant for a multilateral event and not for discussing Pakistan-India relations. These remarks are self-explanatory, she said.

The last Indian external affairs minister to visit Pakistan was Sushma Swaraj. She had travelled to Islamabad in December 2015 to attend a conference on Afghanistan.

Jaishankar's visit to Pakistan assumes significance as it is seen as a major decision on New Delhi's part.

The ties between India and Pakistan came under severe strain after India's warplanes pounded a Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist training camp in Balakot in Pakistan in February 2019 in response to the Pulwama terror attack.

The relations further deteriorated after India on August 5, 2019 announced the withdrawal of special powers of Jammu and Kashmir and the bifurcation of the state into two union territories.

Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties with India after New Delhi abrogated Article 370.

India has been maintaining that it desires normal neighbourly relations with Pakistan while insisting that the onus is on Islamabad to create an environment free of terror and hostility for such engagement.

Pakistan's then foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari visited India in May 2023 to attend an in-person meeting of the foreign ministers of SCO nations in Goa.

It was the first visit of a Pakistani foreign minister to India in almost 12 years.

Giving details of the SCO meeting, Baloch said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will preside over the upcoming CHG Meeting.

"We expect high-level participation from SCO members; the observer state of Mongolia; Turkmenistan as a special guest; and representatives of the international organisations, including Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and European Economic Community (EEC), she said.

She said that the CHG meeting will discuss cooperation in the fields of economy, trade, environment, and socio-cultural linkages and also review the performance of the Organisation. The leaders will adopt important organisational decisions to further enhance cooperation among SCO member States and approve the grouping's budget.