New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar is set to visit Pakistan later this month for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Heads of Government summit, scheduled to take place in Islamabad on 15th and 16th October. This visit will be Jaishankar's first as India's foreign minister and marks the first official visit by an Indian foreign minister to Pakistan in nearly nine years. 

The last foreign minister to make the trip was Sushma Swaraj, who led the Indian delegation to the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process in Islamabad in December 2015.

At a recent press conference in New Delhi, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal confirmed Jaishankar's participation in the summit. While several Indian officials, including then-Home Minister Rajnath Singh in 2016, have visited Pakistan for various meetings, Jaishankar's upcoming visit holds significance as it re-establishes high-level diplomatic engagement between the two nations. The SCO summit is particularly important as Pakistan currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of Government.

BI Bureau