Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar to visit Pakistan for SCO summit

India's External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar speaks at Iikura Guest House in Tokyo, Japan July 29, 2024. Tomohiro Ohsumi

NEW DELHI - Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will visit Pakistan to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit this month, the Indian foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday.

The visit will be the first by an Indian foreign minister to Pakistan in nearly a decade and will take place at a time when relations between the nuclear-armed rivals have been strained over the Kashmir dispute.

Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said Jaishankar will lead the Indian delegation to Pakistan for the summit of Eurasian leaders on Oct. 15 and 16 but did not say if he would meet any Pakistani leaders on the sidelines.

The South Asian neighbours have fought three wars, including two over control of the disputed Kashmir region in the Himalayas. New Delhi accuses Islamabad of aiding and abetting Islamist militants fighting Indian rule in the region, a charge Pakistan denies.

Earlier this year, Jaishankar said that India would want to "find a solution to the issue of years-old cross-border terrorism" but added that it cannot be the "policy of a good neighbour".

Relations between the two countries have gone through periods of thaw from time to time but have been largely frozen as they downgraded diplomatic ties in tit-for-tat moves in 2019 after New Delhi scrapped Kashmir's special autonomy and split it into two federally administered territories.

Ties had deteriorated earlier in 2019 after a suicide bombing of an Indian military convoy in Kashmir was traced to Pakistan-based militants, prompting India to carry out an air strike on what it said was a militant base in Pakistan.

The last high-level visit between the two countries took place in May 2023 when Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Pakistan's foreign minister at the time, attended the SCO foreign ministers' meeting in India's coastal state of Goa.

While Bhutto-Zardari did not meet any Indian leaders, he and Jaishankar used the forum to trade blame for their frosty ties.

-(Reuters)