Jaishankar-Bilawal Bhutto Zardari meet unlikely at SCO summit

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is unlikely to meet his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who is visiting India to take part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit that will be held in May.

The development comes a day after Jaishankar took a veiled dig at Pakistan while speaking at a joint press conference with Panama's Foreign Minister Janaina Tewaney Mencomo in Panama City.

"It is very difficult for us to engage with a neighbour who practices cross-border terrorism. We have conveyed to them that they have to stop encouraging, sponsoring, and carrying out cross-border terrorism. We continue to hope we will reach that stage someday," he said.

Last week, five Indian Army soldiers were killed in a terrorist attack in Jammu Kashmir's Poonch. The attack added to the bitterness in India-Pakistan ties, which are already in a deep freeze.

Zardari's India visit is significant as this will be the first visit by any Pakistani Foreign Minister since Hina Rabbani Khar in 2011.

The relations between India and Pakistan suffered a severe blow after the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama in 2019 by Pakistan-backed terrorists.

India hit back with an aerial strike at a terror training centre in Balakot of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on February 26 last year.

The ties further deteriorated after India scrapped the special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370.