Pak Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto to arrive in India for SCO meet

Along with the G20 Summit, India will also be hosting the Shanghai Co-Operation (SCO) Summit this year, where top officials of all the member nations, including Pakistan, will be coming to India. Looking at the currently worsened relations between India and Pakistan, it was unclear whether Pakistan would show the expected participation in this meeting. However, a spokesperson of Pakistan’s foreign ministry has now confirmed that their Minister Bilawal Butto Zardari will be arriving in Goa at the invitation from India’s External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar in the Foreign Minister’s meeting.   

Bhutto’s arrival in Goa will be the first time that a serving minister of Pakistan will come to India since 2014 when former Pak PM Nawaz Sharif came to India. This meet is set to take place in Goa on May 4 and 5. Naturally, Jaishankar has also extended an invitation to the new Chinese Foreign Minister Qing Gang. Last month, the Pakistan government stated that no decision had been made about whether Pakistan would be participating in this meet after India decided to hold a key G20 meet in Jammu and Kashmir. There is no confirmation yet whether India will be holding a bilateral meeting with Pakistan during this summit now that Bhutto has decided to attend it.