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India in major move have announced that External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will travel to Pakistan to attend a conclave of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in mid-October.
The announcement was made by external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal. 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. Pakistan is hosting the SCO Council of Heads of Government meeting on October 15 and 16.
“The external affairs minister will lead our delegation to Pakistan to participate in the SCO summit which will be held in Islamabad on October 15 and 16,” Jaiswal said at his weekly media briefing.
The spokesperson clarified that the external affairs minister is travelling to Pakistan only to attend the SCO summit.
In August, Pakistan invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the SCO’s summit. Jaishankar’s visit to Pakistan assumes significance as it is seen as a major decision on New Delhi’s part.
On EAM S Jaishankar to visit Pakistan for the SCO summit, National Conference provincial president, Rattan Lal Gupta told ANI , “We welcome this. I think this is a very good time because the National Conference has always said that we should have good relations with our neighbours, especially with Pakistan and that we should have dialogues with them. So now the Foreign Minister of India is going to Pakistan, we welcome it and I hope new avenues for dialogue will open up. If we have good relations with our neighbours, they will progress and we will also progress…”
