India Pakistan Relation | India sent invitation to Pakistan to join Asian Grouping SCO, Bilawal Bhutto did not respond

India, as the chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), has invited Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Pakistan’s Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial to participate in the meeting of foreign ministers and chief justices of the organisation. Pakistan has not yet responded to India’s invitation. The invitation has been extended at a time when bilateral relations between the neighbors are at an all-time low. This invitation has been sent from India through the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

India took over the chairmanship of the nine-member grouping last September and will host key ministerial meetings and summits in Goa in the first week of May. If Bhutto accepts the invitation, it would be the first such visit in a decade. Hina Rabbani Khar was the last Pakistani Foreign Minister to visit India in 2011.

Relations between the two countries have been uncertain for several years amid unresolved issues of cross-border terrorism by Pakistan and Islamabad seeking restoration of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. Furthermore, Bilawal Bhutto’s remarks at the United Nations last month about PM Modi will not help improve relations between the nations.

The SCO also includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Invitations have also been sent to the Foreign Ministers of China and Russia along with other Central Asian countries. Iran is the newest member of the organization and under the chairmanship of India, will attend the meeting of the grouping for the first time as a full member. Its last meeting was held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.