India's foreign minister is set to visit Pakistan later this month for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, according to a government spokesperson. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will be the first Indian foreign minister to visit Pakistan in nearly a decade. The two nations have a history of bitter rivalry and political tensions, marked by three wars and numerous smaller conflicts since their partition in 1947. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise visit to Pakistan in 2015, shortly after taking office, raised hopes for improved relations. However, ties deteriorated again in 2019 when Modi revoked the limited autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir, leading Pakistan to suspend bilateral trade and downgrade diplomatic relations with India. The Himalayan region, which is divided between the two countries and claimed by both in full, has been the site of a long-running and deadly insurgency against Indian rule.
Government spokesman Randhir Jaiswal clarified that the purpose of the visit is solely for the SCO summit and that there should be no expectation of any other outcomes related to India-Pakistan relations. The SCO, a bloc of 10 nations established by China and Russia, has traditionally been used to deepen ties with Central Asian states and compete for influence in the region. Recently, it has positioned itself as a counterbalance to Western influence. The bloc claims to represent 40% of the world's population and about 30% of its GDP, despite its members having diverse political systems and occasional disagreements. Pakistan's former foreign minister, Bhutto Zardari, attended an SCO meeting in Goa last year, where he had a verbal altercation with Jaishankar. No one-on-one meeting took place between the two.
Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center, noted that India's decision to attend the summit is likely driven more by its commitment to the SCO than by any desire to improve relations with Pakistan.
