India Calls Regional Grouping SCO Members, Including Pak, China, For Meet

India has invited Pakistan and China along with other nations for the next round of SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Convention) foreign ministers’ meet due in Goa in May, government sources have said.

Sources in Pakistan, meanwhile, confirmed that foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has received the invite, though Islamabad is yet to take a call on attending. An invitation has also gone China’s new Foreign Minister Qin Gang, sources said.

As the host for the SCO this year, India is expected to invite all countries, sources said. Besides Pakistan and China, the eight-member grouping includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The invite to Pakistan comes shortly after Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s “we have learnt our lesson” comment.

In an interview with Dubai-based Al Arabiya TV last week, Mr Sharif had said, “We have had three wars with India, and they have only brought more misery, poverty, and unemployment to the people… We have learnt our lesson, and we want to live in peace with India, provided we are able to resolve our genuine problems”.

“My message to the Indian leadership and Prime Minister Modi is that let’s sit down on the table and have serious and sincere talks to resolve our burning points like Kashmir,” he had added.

In November 2021, New Delhi invited Pakistan for a meeting of National Security Advisors on Afghanistan in Delhi.

Islamabad, however, had turned down the invite, accusing India of playing a negative role in the war-torn nation. “I will not go. I am not going. A spoiler can’t become a peacemaker,” Mr Yusuf had said.
India-Pakistan ties have been strained since the terror attack on the Pathankot Air Force base in 2016. Subsequent attacks, including one on an Indian Army camp in Uri, added to the strain.

India has insisted that talks and terror cannot go hand-in-hand and Pakistan needs to dismantle all the terror camps operating from its soil.