New Delhi: This is the last day of August and India saw a lot of diplomacy with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Ukraine and scheduled visit to the US next month.
What's interesting is Pakistan has invited India to the SCO summit in October this year. It is yet to be seen if he will visit Pakistan to attend the summit. Amid the strained ties between India and Pakistan, it will be interesting to watch India's response which is been keenly awaited. It will be of interest to see if PM Modi deputes a minister to represent India at the event, as he has done in the past.
The Ministry of External Affairs on Friday said, "India has received the invitation for attending the Heads of Government Summit of SCO hosted by Pakistan. As and when we have an update, we will share it with you". Islamabad will host the SCO summit on 15-16 October.
According to reports, the event will be preceded by a ministerial meeting and several rounds of senior officials' meetings focused on financial, economic, socio-cultural, and humanitarian cooperation among the SCO member states.
Last year, Pakistan's then foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto visited India for the SCO foreign minister meeting. India assumed the rotating Chairmanship of SCO at the Samarkand Summit on 16 September 2022. Under India’s first-ever Chairmanship, the 23rd Summit of the SCO Council of Heads of State was held in the virtual format on 4 July 2023, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
All the SCO Member States, viz. China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, were invited to attend the Summit. In addition, Iran, Belarus and Mongolia were invited as Observer States. As per SCO tradition, Turkmenistan was also invited as the guest of the Chair.
Further, Heads of six international and regional organizations such as UN, ASEAN, CIS, CSTO, EAEU and CICA were invited.
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