SCO Summit
A poster featuring Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and the words “Long Live Pakistan” are affixed to the wall at the Wagah border. At the “zero point” on the India-Pakistan border, around 400 kilometers from Islamabad, where the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Heads of Government is gathering, Pakistan Rangers stand watch over the gates.
The Chinese and Pakistani flags are flying over the streets of Islamabad as the nighttime is illuminated by LED lights welcome the visiting Chinese Premier Li Qiang. Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, welcomed Li at the airport on Monday, the first Chinese premier to visit Pakistan in eleven years. And the SCO summit international media center is situated in the capital’s centerpiece China-Pakistan project, the “China-Pakistan friendship center,” which Beijing constructed as a component of the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s favorite projects.
The welcoming reception for the visiting Chinese Premier, the media center at the “China-Pakistan friendship center,” and Geelani’s billboard at the India-Pakistan border, where he shares space with the nation’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, all convey a clear message on the priorities and interests of the Pakistan government.
Set against this backdrop, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, the first Indian External Affairs Minister to visit Pakistan in nine years, arrived in Islamabad on Tuesday afternoon for the SCO Summit conference. The last such visit took place on December 8–9, 2015, when Sushma Swaraj traveled to Islamabad to attend the “Heart of Asia” conference on Afghanistan. A member of Swaraj’s delegation was Jaishankar, who was India’s foreign secretary at the time.
Former political counselor at the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi, Ilyas Nizami, a senior officer in the Pakistani foreign ministry, welcomed Jaishankar on Tuesday. The visiting dignitaries were given a banquet in the evening where Jaishankar met Pakistan PM Sharif. Video footage from the event showed them shaking hands and speaking briefly. Jaishankar is set to take part.
There is a feeling of anticipation in Islamabad on whether his visit will signal a fresh start, resolving the strained relations between the two nations due to the terror attacks and the repeal of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.
As he stated earlier this month that he was “planning” his trip to Pakistan, Jaishankar had left a window open. “In my business, you plan for everything that you are going to do, and for a lot of things that you are not going to do, which could also happen, you plan for that as well,” he declared.
“He is a guest of Pakistan,” Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, a spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, stated. All of the leaders who have chosen to attend this meeting have been welcomed by Pakistan, and the country will extend its customary hospitality to all visitors, including India’s Minister of External Affairs.
When asked if there was a chance to have a bilateral discussion on the sidelines, she responded, “There are no such plans.”
She declared that Islamabad would seek to address global issues as the host of the SCO gathering. The heads of government of the SCO are currently chaired by Pakistan, which has a charter that calls for them to focus on issues related to trade, economics, cultural connectivity, and climate change. These issues will be the focus of tomorrow’s conference, for which our national coordinators have been gathering and attempting to reach an agreement on a declaration that will be adopted tomorrow, she said.
Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan’s Planning Minister, responded, “We are the hosts, we cannot propose a meeting,” when asked if Pakistan would suggest a meeting between Jaishankar and Pakistan’s leaders during an interview with Indian journalists. “I believe we need to go beyond finger-pointing and consider the more than 1.5 billion people who reside in this region since both nations have ample ammunition to direct criticism at one another. SAARC is a dysfunctional organization. There are no problems with the European Union. There is nothing wrong with GCC. The ASEAN is not broken. SAARC is dysfunctional, and I often tell my Indian friends that if India had a quarter of the heart of it’s geography there would be no probem.’
Despite the protests from the PTI, the jailed party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, the Pakistani establishment is not taking any chances. On the eve of the SCO meeting, Islamabad feels like a fortress. All marketplaces and offices have been shut down, and the streets are crowded with security guards. Islamabad will have a three-day public holiday, according to the administration.
According to the interior ministry, Pakistan Army forces are in charge of protecting the capital’s “Red Zone,” which includes the Parliament, a diplomatic outpost, and the location of the majority of regular meetings.
Following presumably PTI supporters’ complaints, the nearly 400-kilometer motorway that connects Lahore and Islamabad has been sanitized. Following Khan’s October 15 call for a protest, violent altercations between his party’s members and security forces have put