Pakistan foreign minister to attend regional moot in India

By Islamuddin Sajid

ISLAMABAD (AA) - Pakistan announced on Thursday that Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) meeting to be held on May 4-5 in the southwestern Indian state of Goa.

This will also be the first visit by a Pakistani foreign minister to a neighboring South Asian country since 2011, when then-top diplomat Hina Rabbani Khar, now Zardari's deputy, visited India.

During a weekly briefing in Islamabad, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said the foreign minister is attending the SCO CFM meeting at the invitation of its current chair, Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

"Our participation in the meeting reflects Pakistan’s commitment to the SCO Charter and processes and the importance that Pakistan accords to the region in its foreign policy priorities," she said.

Zardari had attended the CFM's last meeting in July last year in Tashkent, Tajikistan's capital.

Relations between the two nuclear neighbors have been at an all-time low since Aug. 2019, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government scarped Article 370 and Article 35A of the Indian Constitution, which granted Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir special status and imprisoned several Kashmiri leaders.

Subsequently, Islamabad suspended all exports and trade relations and reduced diplomatic ties with New Delhi.

Earlier, this ban was only limited to Israel, with which Pakistan has no diplomatic or trade relations.

- Disputed region

Kashmir is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars – in 1948, 1965, and 1971 – two of them over Kashmir.

Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights groups, thousands of people have been killed in the conflict in the region since 1989.