- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
All eyes were set on the visit by Pakistani foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari to India to take part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) foreign ministers’ meeting, which will kick off on Thursday (4) in the south-western state of Goa.
While both sides have tried to convey the message that Bhutto-Zardari’s visit should not get a special focus since the occasion is a multilateral conclave, yet speculation is rife over the Pakistan People’s Party leader’s visit. Bhutto-Zardari, son of late Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, is the first high-profile Pakistani politician to visit India since former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif went to Delhi to take part in the inauguration of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in May 2014.
Dawn, one of Pakistan’s top dailies, came up with an editorial titled ‘SCO meet-up’ ahead of Bhutto-Zardari’s visit to India saying his trip ‘throws up an opportunity to at least symbolically restart the dialogue process with New Delhi”.
It also cautioned against high hopes.
“However, there should be no great expectations as the SCO is not a forum for the resolution of bilateral disputes — although were the Pakistani and Indian foreign ministers to exchange diplomatic pleasantries, it might help change the bitter tone of the relationship,” the editorial added.
The relationship between the two nuclear-armed neighbours turned sour in the wake of repeated terror attacks on the Indian soil, including on its troops in Pathankot (206), Uri (2016) and Pulwama (2019) and the Narendra Modi government’s decision to remove Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status.
While acknowledging the obstacles on the way of better bilateral relations between India and Pakistan, the Dawn editorial said, “…while hawks in New Delhi may argue that India does not need Pakistan’s friendship, more level-headed Indians acknowledge the reality that a state of perpetual conflict in the subcontinent is not sustainable.”
It said the SCO has a great potential to bring geopolitical rivals together for the common good and hoped that the bloc succeeds where the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation failed.
