Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto to visit India in May

Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will lead the delegation that will attend the the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Foreign Ministers' meeting in Goa on May 4 and 5. Bhutto's visit to India will be the first visit by any Pakistani leader after Nawaz Sharif in 2014.

"Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will be leading the Pakistan delegation to the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) being held on May 4-5, 2023, in Goa, India," Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahrah Baloch announced it at a weekly media briefing here.

Ending weeks-long speculation, Mumtaz said the Pakistan foreign minister would be attending the meeting as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had invited him to attend the SCO meet.

"Our participation in the meeting reflects Pakistan's commitment to the SCO Charter and processes and the importance that Pakistan accords to the region in its foreign policy priorities," Baloch said.

In May 2014, then-Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif visited India to attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony.

In December 2015, the then external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj visited Pakistan and days later, Modi made a brief visit to the neighbouring country.

India has been maintaining that it desires normal neighbourly relations with Pakistan, while insisting that the onus is on Islamabad to create an environment that is free of terror and hostility for such an engagement.

The ties between India and Pakistan came under severe strain after India's warplanes pounded a Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist training camp in Pakistan's Balakot in February 2019 in response to the Pulwama terror attack.

The relations further deteriorated after India in August 2019 announced the withdrawal of Jammu and Kashmir's special powers and the bifurcation of the erstwhile state into Union territories.

The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Over the years, it has emerged as one of the largest trans-regional international organisations. India and Pakistan became its permanent members in 2017.

with PTI inputs