Sachin Parashar
ISLAMABAD: Foreign minister S Jaishankar began his visit to Pakistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) heads of government meeting, the first by any Indian foreign minister in nearly a decade, participating in a dinner hosted by PM Shehbaz Sharif for the delegates on Tuesday evening.
Shehbaz extended his hand as Jaishankar walked up to him at the dinner venue – the PM’s residence – and the handshake that followed lasted for several seconds as they exchanged courtesies.This was a rare occasion when Jaishankar publicly shook hands with a Pakistan leader. He had greeted his then counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari last year in the Goa SCO meeting with a namaste. However, Jaishankar, was neither scheduled to call on Shehbaz separately nor have a formal bilateral meeting with his counterpart Ishaq Dar, who was present at the dinner, during his 24-hour stay in Islamabad.
After having ruled out a bilateral meeting, both sides also played down expectations of a brief pull aside on the sidelines of the summit on Wednesday, maintaining Jaishankar’s presence in Pakistan was about the SCO, the security-oriented Eurasian bloc which counts India and Pakistan as full member-states since 2017.
After the dinner, Pakistan minister of planning and development Ahsan Iqbal put the onus for a bilateral meeting on India, saying that Pakistan, as the host, can’t propose any such meeting. Asked about the exchange of greetings between Jaishankar and Shehbaz, the minister also said it was time for both sides to uphold the Lahore Declaration that Shebaz’s brother Nawaz Sharif reached with then Indian PM A B Vajpayee in 1999.
There was also a cultural programme at the dinner in which a Pakistani dancer performed Bharatanatyam. Shehbaz was seated next to his Chinese and Kazakhstan counterparts at the dinner table and there wasn’t much of an exchange between him and Jaishankar during the dinner.
The SCO heads of government meeting is focused on the trade and economic agenda of the organisation. Ahead of Jaishankar’s arrival in Islamabad, the government said in a statement India remains actively engaged in the SCO format, including various mechanisms and initiatives within the SCO framework. Jaishankar himself announced his arrival in a post on X, uploading photos of him being greeted by children at the airport.
Jaishankar met Chinese Premier Li Qiang too at the dinner. He will address the summit on Wednesday, underlining India’s position, without naming China or Pakistan, that all member-states must respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial connectivity while pursuing connectivity and infrastructure initiatives.
The government of Pakistan uploaded a video of Jaishankar’s arrival for the SCO meeting, saying “exciting discussions ahead’’. A meeting between Jaishankar and Dar remained a remote possibility though.
“I don’t think there is any expectation of a breakthrough in bilateral ties during the visit by the Indian minister,’’ said former Pakistan interim PM Anwaar-ul-haq Kakar, responding to a query from ToI. Considered close to the federal government, Kakar, however, also said the visit by Jaishankar, even if for a multilateral event, could provide an opening for engagement between the 2 countries. Asked why Pakistan had not proposed a meeting, Kakar said an outreach to India could hurt the government in the elections and would provoke widespread protests by PTI supporters.
India is unlikely to itself propose any sort of meeting with Pakistan during Jaishankar’s visit. As former Indian high commissioner Ajay Bisaria says, India has already taken the bold step of sending Jaishankar and the onus is now on Islamabad to use this opportunity to stabilise ties by proposing a meaningful conversation. For any improvement in bilateral ties, India would like Pakistan to first review its decision to recall its high commissioner, after India revoked the special status of J&K.