India extends invitation to Pakistan FM Bilawal Bhutto for SCO meeting

India, currently holding the Chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), has extended an invitation to Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial to attend the organization’s meetings for foreign ministers and chief justices. Pakistan has not yet given a response to India’s invitation.

The Indian High Commission in Islamabad has extended the invitations to Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting, at a time when the relationship between the two countries is at a low point.

Also read: Pak PM Shehbaz Sharif’s peace moves with India alluring, but will it work?

India has taken over the chairmanship of the nine-member organization since last September and will be hosting the key ministerial meetings and a summit in Goa during the first week of May.

If Bhutto accepts the invitation, it will be the first visit of this kind in over 10 years, with the last Pakistani foreign minister to visit India being Hina Rabbani Khar in 2011.

It has been several years since a Pakistani Prime Minister has visited India, with the last being Nawaz Sharif in May 2014 for Prime Minister Modi’s swearing-in ceremony. On the Indian side, both former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Prime Minister Modi made a visit to Pakistan in December 2015.

Also read: Explained: Who is Bilawal Bhutto, Pak minister who targeted Modi at UNSC?

Despite this, there have been no official bilateral talks between the two nations on unresolved issues in recent years, although Cabinet Ministers have visited the Pakistani town of Kartarpur for the construction of a corridor linking the Kartarpur Gurudwara to Baba Dera Nanak in India.

Iran is the newest member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and, during India’s presidency, will be participating in the organization’s meeting as a full member for the first time.

The last gathering of the SCO was held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.