Recently, Pakistan’s Foreign Office has announced that Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will lead the Pakistan delegation to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers (CFMs) summit being held in Goa, India during the first week of next month. According to the Spokesperson, Pakistan’s participation in the meeting reflects Pakistan’s commitment to the SCO Charter and the importance that Pakistan accords to the region in its foreign policy agenda.
Pakistan and its staunch rival India have both been active members of the 8-member regional cooperation bloc, since 2016. Being the current chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), New Delhi hosted a series of events for the SCO member nations in India over the past few weeks, while the Indian government blatantly abused the global norms and the charter of the organization during the past meetings because of it’s biased behavior and dealing with Pakistan. The government of Pakistan category raised its concerns regarding the biased attitude of New Delhi at the SCO headquarters and decided to attend the meetings of the forum on Indian soil only to preserve the spirit and momentum of regional cooperation under the charter of the SCO forum. Currently, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is attending the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers meeting at the invitation of the current Chair of the SFM Dr. S. Jaishankar, Minister for External Affairs of India, which is another manifestation of Pakistan’s region-centric diplomacy with the aim not to let the SCO forum fall prey to India’s hegemonism and arrogant behavior.
Pakistan and India have not been on normal diplomatic terms, and there was no official trade, tourism, or sports between the two countries after the Modi government unilaterally changed the status of India’s Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) on August 5, 2019. Historically, Jammu and Kashmir is a major and longstanding dispute between India and Pakistan since the two countries got independence from British rule. The Modi regime betrayed the global community and blatantly violated the UN resolutions by revoking the special status of the disputed territory under the Indian constitution. Historically, New Delhi occupied the Muslim-majority region by force, and currently over 700 thousand troops are deployed in Indian-held Jammu and Kashmir. Both neighbors had fought four wars and Kashmir is one of the most militarized zones and nuclear flashpoints in the world. Ironically, India has not only changed the legal status of the Indian-held Jammu and Kashmir but persistently taken multiple measures including the mass migration of Indian Hindus to disputed area, issuance of citizenry status to non-Kashmiris, and fake delimitation of the electoral constituencies in a bid to change the demography of the Muslim-majority region.
There was no dialogue and diplomatic engagement between the two neighbors after February 2019 military standoff and condemnable acts of the Modi regime thereafter. Presently, Pakistan has not only decided to send its Foreign Minister to India to attend the summit but also expressed its openness to any bilateral engagement with New Delhi on the sidelines of the Goa Summit to help initiate constructive activity between the two neighbors. Pakistan perceives that negotiation and dialogue are the only way forward for the two nuclear-armed states to settle their decades-long disputes and move forward toward peaceful coexistence, and regional economic cooperation in the greater interest of the people of the region.
Realistically, India must abandon its hegemonic designs in a changed global and regional geostrategic environment. The SCO forum provides equal opportunities to all member states for greater regional integration and economic and security cooperation to achieve common goals. There is a famous quote, friends can be changed but neighbors can’t be changed. Therefore, both Pakistan and India accept this reality and must negotiate and resolve their outstanding issues including the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir. So, peace prevails and humanity prospers in the area like all other regions in the world.
