External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar today said he was not going to Islamabad to discuss “India-Pakistan relations” but for the multilateral event — the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. The Ministry of External Affairs had yesterday announced that Jaishankar would lead an Indian delegation to the SCO Council of Heads of Government Summit in Islamabad on October 15 and 16.
Responding to a query at an event here, Jaishankar said, “The visit is for a multilateral summit. I’m not going there to discuss India-Pakistan relations. I’m going there to be a good member of the SCO.”
He added, “But, you know, since I’m a courteous and civil person, I will behave accordingly.” Typically, the Prime Minister attends such high-level meetings with heads of state, but “it changes” sometimes, the minister said.
On what he was planning for the visit, he said, “In my business, you plan for everything, which you are going to do, and for a lot of things, which you are not going to do and which could also happen. I mean, you plan for that as well.”
Asked if Pakistan had sought a meeting with Jaishankar, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal on Friday said, “So far, we can only say that the minister is travelling to Pakistan for the SCO meeting. If there is a change, we will let you know.”
Jaishankar will be the first External Affairs Minister to visit Pakistan since Sushma Swaraj visited it in 2015. In August 2016, Rajnath Singh, the then Union Home Minister, had visited Pakistan.
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