- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
While the news of Pakistani foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari visiting India in May for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) foreign ministers’ meeting stormed the headlines last week, sources have said that a formal meeting between Bhutto-Zardari and his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is unlikely to take place during the event scheduled in the western Indian state of Goa, NDTV reported.
It was only two days ago that Jaishankar indirectly slammed the neighbouring country while speaking at a joint press conference with his Panamanian counterpart Janaina Tewaney Mencomo in Panama City where he visited on Tuesday (25).
“It is for us very difficult to engage with a neighbour who practices cross-border terrorism against us. We’ve always said that they have to deliver on the commitment not to encourage, sponsor and carry out cross-border terrorism. We continue to hope that one day we would reach that stage,” the Indian diplomat said.
Last week, five Indian soldiers were killed in a terror attack in Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir hours after Pakistan confirmed its foreign minister’s participation at the SCO event in India on May 4 and 5.
While speculation was rife over the foreign ministers of the two hostile neighbours’ meeting each other, both sides stressed on the fact that it would not be appropriate to focus on the participation of any particular country.
When Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson of the Indian ministry of external affairs, was asked whether Pakistan had requested for a bilateral meeting between Bhutto-Zardari and Jaishankar, he avoided giving a direct reply.
“We look forward to a successful meeting. It will not be appropriate to focus on participation by any one particular country,” he said.
