SCO Meet: India has sent an invitation to Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Asif and National Security Advisor (NSA) to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting to be held in New Delhi in April.
New Delhi: India has sent an invitation to Pakistan 's Defense Minister Khwaja Asif for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting to be held in Delhi next month. At present, India holds the presidency of the SCO , in which China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are members. India being the SCO chair has to host a series of meetings.
The invitation has also been sent to the National Security Advisor (NSA). There are also reports that Khwaja Asif has accepted the invitation of the Government of India. If Asif comes to attend the Defense Minister's meeting, it will be the first such visit since 2011. In 2011, the then Foreign Minister of Pakistan Hina Rabbani Khar visited India.
Diplomatic sources told The Express Tribune newspaper that the Indian government officially shared the invitation (letter) with Pakistan's Foreign Office on Tuesday. India has not yet confirmed the news published in Pakistani media.
The news claimed that India had earlier invited Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial and also shared the invitation for the ACO foreign ministers' meeting. According to the news, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, however, did not attend the meeting of the SCO Chief Justice and in his place, Justice Munib Akhtar took part in the recently concluded meeting through video conference.
Significantly, the meeting of foreign ministers of SCO is to be held in Goa in May while the meeting of defense ministers will be held in New Delhi in April. The Pakistan government said that it has not yet taken a decision regarding the participation of Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari or Defense Minister Asif in the meetings to be held in India. India has already invited Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang to attend the meeting.
India will also send invitations to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin for the annual SCO summit later this year.
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