External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will go on a two-day visit to Pakistan today. Meanwhile, he will participate in the summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) countries in the capital Islamabad. India is a member country of SCO.
Pakistan, which is hosting the summit, sent an invitation to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August. However, the Foreign Minister will participate in the summit instead of the Prime Minister from India. Jaishankar will spend less than 24 hours there. Earlier, Jaishankar had said that the purpose of his visit to Pakistan is only for the SCO meeting, there will be no discussion on relations between the two countries.
Apart from India, representatives of 8 countries including Russia and China will also participate in this summit. Keeping this in mind, a lockdown has been implemented in Islamabad to strengthen security. Also a holiday has been declared for 3 days in the entire city.
A large number of police and paramilitary forces have also been deployed in the city.
Indian Minister is visiting Pakistan after 9 years This visit of External Affairs Minister Jaishankar is also special because it is the first time an Indian minister is visiting Pakistan in 9 years. Earlier in 2015, Prime Minister Modi visited Pakistan. Then Modi reached Lahore on a surprise visit. He met Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif. No Indian Prime Minister or Minister has gone to Pakistan since his visit.
After the removal of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, tensions between India and Pakistan increased. Since then no high-level meeting has taken place between the two countries. However, last year Pakistan's then Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto came to India to attend the meeting of Foreign Ministers of SCO countries in Goa.
Both the leaders did not even shake hands during this meeting.
Why is SCO important for India? SCO includes India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. This organization is created to maintain peace in Central Asia and cooperation among all countries. Pakistan, China and Russia are also its members. The SCO provides a strong platform for India to strongly present its views on counter-terrorism and security related issues.
According to experts, there are three main policies of India regarding SCO:
- Strengthening relations with Russia
- To check and respond to the dominance of neighboring countries China and Pakistan.
- Increase cooperation with Central Asian countries
- One of India's main goals in joining the SCO is to strengthen economic ties with its 4 Central Asian republics, i.e. CAR members – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
- India is facing difficulties in doing this due to lack of connectivity with these countries and China's dominance in the region.
- After joining the SCO in 2017, India's trade with these Central Asian countries has increased. India's trade with these four countries was 11 thousand crore rupees in 2017-18, which has increased to more than 21 thousand crore rupees in 2019-20.
- During this period, the Indian government and private companies also invested in gold mining, uranium, electricity and agro-processing units in these countries.
- Central Asia holds about 45% of the world's untapped crude oil and gas reserves. Hence, these countries are important to meet India's energy needs in the coming years.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
