Pakistan sends minister to India for SCO meeting

O Pakistan will send a minister to India for a regional conference next week, announced today the Pakistani Government, on its first visit of this kind since the armed confrontation between the two neighbours in 2025.

The Minister of Climate Change, Musadik Malik, will represent Pakistan at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Pakistan’s diplomacy said.

The meeting will take place in New Delhi, between 20 and 22 November, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs needed in a statement quoted by the French agency AFP.

This will be the first visit to India by a Pakistani federal minister since May 2023.

India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, harbor deep distrust and waged several wars since their independence in 1947, mainly due to the Muslim majority region of Kashmir, claimed by both states.

In May 2025, the two countries were involved in a four-day deadly conflict, after armed men killed mostly Hindu tourists in Kashmir.

New Delhi accused Islamabad of supporting the attack, an accusation strongly denied by Pakistan.

The attack triggered a series of diplomatic retaliation measures, which degenerated into intense exchanges of missile fire, drones and artillery, making more than 70 dead.

“The Government of Pakistan remains committed to promoting dialogue between civilizations and to encouraging contacts between peoples within the SCO in a spirit of mutual respect,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was established in 2001, by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and succeeded a group that joined the first five countries in 1996, known as Shanghai Five.

India and Pakistan have been members of the SCO since 2017, while Iran joined in 2023, followed by Belarus in 2024.

It is an organisation which aims at Eurasia's political, economic and military cooperation and tries to function as a counterweight to the West.