Pakistan Eats Crow, Agrees To Attend SCO Meet Hosted By India Amid Economic Turmoil

Pakistan will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) National Security Advisors (NSA) meeting hosted by India, reports the Hindustan Times.

The NSA meeting will focus on the situation in Afghanistan and counter-terrorism, extremism, and cross-border drug trade.

Apart from the NSA meeting that will be held tomorrow (29 March), Pakistan has given in-principle approval to attend a further two meetings — Defence Ministers' meet from 27 April-29 April and Foreign Ministers' meet from 4 May-5 May.

However, Pakistan has not decided on the mode of participation in these meetings.

Quoting an official, the report says, “While there is an in-principle decision on attending all these upcoming meetings, the mode of participation — whether it will be in-person or virtual — is yet to be decided.”

Pakistan’s participation in the SCO NSAs’ meeting is also most likely to be virtual, the HT report says quoting an official.

In the NSA meeting, a senior Defence Ministry official will attend, since Pakistan has no official NSA.

Moeed Yusuf served as NSA until April 2022 under the Imran Khan-led government, but resigned when Imran Khan stepped down.

The decision to participate in the SCO meeting came as a surprise since Pakistan was forced to sit out in the SCO’s Military Medicine Specialist meeting on 21 March due to Pakistan’s usage of wrong Indian maps.

“Pakistan’s participation in all SCO meetings should be welcomed, though the focus should be on multilateral issues,” Ajay Bisaria, former envoy to Pakistan and Canada said.

“Pakistan should come for these multilateral meetings and follow the mantra of talking about multilateral issues, while leaving bilateral issues at the doorstep. This process will help build trust for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations, where we could engage multilaterally,” Bisaria added.