Kasuri to lead Pak delegation at SCO summit

Islamabad, Aug 13: Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri will represent Islamabad at the summit meeting of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) being hosted by Kyrgyzstan this week.

Pakistan has been invited to attend the one-day summit as an observer on August 16 in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. The summit will focus on combating terrorism, Dawn newspaper reported today.

Mr Kasuri will be leading a four-member delegation comprising senior foreign ministry officials, including Additional Secretary (Afghanistan and ECO) Khalid Khattak and Director-General Foreign Minister's Office Khalid Mahmud.

This will be the first time since Pakistan's admission as observer in July 2005 that the foreign minister will represent Pakistan at the SCO summit.

Previously it has either been the President or the Prime Minister. Apparently this departure has been impelled by the internal situation and pressing engagements of the two leaders at home.

Notably the summit meeting coincides with a politically important event - hearing by the Supreme Court of the Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif case challenging a bar on their return to Pakistan.

Mr Kasuri will leave for Bishkek on the eve of the summit on Wednesday and return home the next day. He will hold only a couple of bilateral meetings, including one with China.

The SCO groups China and Russia with the four Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia have the observer status.

India will also be represented at the SCO summit by its Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee. However, according to informed diplomatic sources no bilateral talks between Mr Kasuri and Mr Mukherjee are on the cards on the sidelines of the summit. It is learnt that neither side has sought a meeting so far.

The last time the two ministers met was in May during the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Hamburg. However, even then they did not hold formal talks.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will also attend the summit as an observer. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been invited as a special guest.

Although the primary focus of SCO has been combating terrorism, religious extremism and separatism, it also covers political, economic and cultural issues.

UNI