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This will be S Jaishankar's first visit to Pakistan as Foreign Minister.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will leave for Pakistan today on a two-day visit. During this time, 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, had sent an invitation to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August. However, from the Indian side, instead of the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister will attend the summit. 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 the relations between the two countries.
Apart from India, representatives of 8 countries including Russia and China will also participate in this summit. In view of this, a lockdown has been imposed in Islamabad to strengthen security. Also, 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 on visit to Pakistan after 9 years This visit of Foreign Minister Jaishankar is also special because for the first time in 9 years an Indian minister is visiting Pakistan. Earlier in 2015, Prime Minister Modi had visited Pakistan.
Then Modi had reached Lahore on a surprise visit. He met Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif. Since his visit, no Prime Minister or Minister of India has visited Pakistan.
Tension between India and Pakistan increased after the removal of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir in 2019. Since then there has been no high-level meeting between the two countries. However, last year, Pakistan's then Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto had come to India to participate in the meeting of foreign ministers of SCO countries in Goa.
During this meeting the two leaders did not even shake hands.
Why is SCO important for India? SCO includes India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. This organization has been created to maintain peace in Central Asia and cooperation among all the countries. Pakistan, China and Russia are also its members. SCO provides a strong platform for India to present its views strongly on issues related to counter terrorism and security.
According to experts, India has three major policies regarding SCO:
- strengthening ties with russia
- To check and respond to the dominance of neighboring countries China and Pakistan.
- Increasing cooperation with Central Asian countries
- One of India's main goals in joining SCO is to strengthen economic ties with its 4 Central Asian Republics or CARs members – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
- India has been facing difficulties in doing this due to lack of connectivity with these countries and China's dominance in this region.
- After joining SCO in 2017, India's trade with these Central Asian countries has increased. In 2017-18, India's trade with these four countries was Rs 11 thousand crore, which increased to more than Rs 21 thousand crore in 2019-20.
- During this period, Indian government and private companies also invested in gold mining, uranium, electricity and agro-processing units in these countries.
- Central Asia has about 45% of the world's crude oil and gas reserves, which have not been utilized. That is why these countries are important in the coming years to meet the energy needs of India.
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