Pakistan invites Indian premier to Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit

Pakistan has invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting to be held in the capital Islamabad in October, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

The SCO heads of government meeting is slated to be held on Oct. 15 -16.

It will be preceded by a ministerial meeting and several rounds of senior officials' meetings focused on financial, economic, socio-cultural, and humanitarian cooperation among the SCO member states, she added.

Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told a news briefing that an invitation has been sent to Modi, recalling that former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari visited India to attend the meeting of the SCO Foreign Ministers in May last year.

He was the first Pakistani foreign minister to visit India in almost 12 years.

Already heightened tensions between the two countries touched a further low after India stripped the longstanding semi-autonomous status of the valley in August 2019, prompting Islamabad to downgrade diplomatic relations with New Delhi and suspend bilateral trade.

Locked in a string of disputes, mainly the lingering Kashmir issue, the two countries have fought three full-fledged wars since 1947.