Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari all set to leave for India tomorrow in order to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Goa.
Bilawal Bhutto will be the first Pakistani foreign minister to visit India in nearly 12 years.
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According to MOFA spokesperson Mumtaz Zahrah Baloch, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari will be leading the Pakistan delegation to the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM), which will take place in the Indian city of Goa on 4th -5th May.
Pakistan’s foreign minister will also hold meetings on the sidelines of the SCO moot during his visit of India.
“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,” Baloch said in a weekly press briefing.
She recalled that Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had last year in July also attended the session of the Council of Foreign Ministers in Tashkent.
The foreign minister attending the moot on the invitation of current chairman of SCO CFM Dr S Jaishankar, India’s Minister for External Affairs.
Separately, Foreign Minister Bhutto also confirmed that he would be attending the upcoming SCO moot in India.
“It will be a gathering of foreign ministers and I will go there as a representative of Pakistan,” he told reporters at a press conference in Islamabad.
The SCO is a regional political and security bloc whose members include Russia, China, India, and Pakistan
The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Over the years, it has emerged as one of the largest trans-regional international organisations.
India and Pakistan became permanent members of the Beijing-based SCO in 2017.
