Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s visit in May to attend a Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s meeting will be the first by a Pakistani foreign minister to the neighbouring South Asian country since 2011.
Pakistan’s 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 and 5 in the southwestern Indian state of Goa, according to his spokesman.
The visit will be the first by a Pakistani foreign minister to the neighbouring South Asian country since 2011, when then-top diplomat Hina Rabbani Khar, now Zardari’s deputy, visited India.
During a weekly briefing in Islamabad, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said the foreign minister is attending the SCO 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.
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Relations between the two nuclear neighbours have been at an all-time low since August 2019, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government scrapped Article 370 and Article 35A of the Indian Constitution, which granted Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir special status.
Following Modi’s decision, the government of India also ordered the imprisonment of 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.
Kashmir is administered by India and Pakistan in parts but claimed in full by both countries. A small sliver of Kashmir is also under Chinese administration.
Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars – in 1948, 1965, and 1971 – and two of them over Kashmir.
Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence or unification with neighbouring Pakistan.
According to several human rights groups, thousands of people have been killed in the conflict in the region since 1989.
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