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Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif said on Thursday that Pakistan’s decision to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization foreign ministers’ meeting in India reflects its “commitment” to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Charter and multilateralism, as he affirmed that his country is committed to doing its part to promote its common values of peace and multilateralism. stability in the region.
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari traveled to Goa on Thursday to attend a secret meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, marking the first high-level visit from Pakistan to India since 2011. Bilawal’s visit comes amid persistent tension in relations between India and Pakistan. On a number of issues including Islamabad’s continued support for cross-border terrorism.
“Pakistan’s decision to attend the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in India reflects our commitment to the SCO Charter and multilateralism,” Sharif wrote on Twitter.
We are committed to doing our part to advance our shared values of peace and stability in the region. We all advocate win-win understandings based on interdependence, trade and mutually beneficial cooperation.”
Bilawal, who is the first Pakistani foreign minister to visit India since 2011, heads a delegation to the Beijing-based Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s foreign ministers’ council. “During my visit, which is exclusively focused on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, I am looking forward to constructive discussions with my counterparts from friendly countries,” Bilawal wrote on Twitter before his departure.
However, Pakistan’s main opposition Tehreek-e-Insaf seems to be divided on the issue of Bilawal’s visit to India as former Prime Minister Imran Khan and other party leaders criticized the move, but former foreign minister and prominent party leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi endorsed the visit. .
“The visit shows that the government has no sympathy for the Kashmiris,” Khan said while speaking to the media inside a courtroom at the Islamabad High Court where he was present to hear his multiple bail requests.
Fawad Chowdhury, a senior PRM leader and former information minister, “strongly condemned” Bilawal’s visit to Goa, saying his participation was possible by video. “Pakistan’s foreign policy is dead by all definitions,” he said in a tweet. .
Shireen Mazari, former PTI human rights minister, also echoed similar sentiments in her tweet. “As I pointed out earlier, FM imported in a desperate attempt to go to Goa to show its loyalty to the Bajwa plan to appease the US over Israel and India…”, it tweeted.
but, dawn The newspaper reported that Qureshi made it clear in an interview with an Indian newspaper that his party does not oppose the visit and understands that this is a “multilateral commitment”. As a former Secretary of State, who has visited such secret meetings, this is an important visit. He said that Pakistan had said that its foreign minister would not hold any meeting with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar.
The visit is very symbolic as it is the first by the Pakistani foreign minister since Hina Rabbani Khar traveled to India in July 2011 for peace talks. Besides Pakistan, the SCO member states include China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and India.
Since becoming a member in 2017, Pakistan has actively and constructively contributed to all SCO activities to achieve its multisectoral goals and objectives in a mutually beneficial manner, the organization said. At the meeting, the foreign ministers will discuss the overall challenges facing the region in light of the current geopolitical turmoil and the state of bilateral relations between the member states will not affect the discussions.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is an influential economic and security bloc and has emerged as one of the largest international organizations across the region. It was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Relations between India and Pakistan came under severe strain after Indian warplanes bombed a terrorist training camp of Jaish-e-Mohammed in Balakot in Pakistan in February 2019 in retaliation for the Pulwama terrorist attack. Relations deteriorated further after India announced the withdrawal of special powers for Jammu and Kashmir and the division of the state into two union territories in 2019.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is republished from a syndicated news agency feed.)
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