Sushma Swaraj to leave for OIC meet today; Pak may skip key meet

Islamabad, Dubai, Feb 28: Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj will leave for United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Thursday to take part in the inaugural session of the foreign ministers' conclave of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Abu Dhabi.

It is yet not clear if Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi will attend OIC meeting after he threatened to boycott the meet over invitation to Sushma Swaraj.

"I have no reservations with the OIC or any other Islamic country. My reservations are with Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj's attendance at the OIC meeting," Qureshi told Geo News.

"If Swaraj attends the meeting then I will not participate in it," Qureshi said.

His statement came amid the heightened tensions between India and Pakistan after the former claimed to have struck terror launch pads in Balakot.

Swaraj has been invited as a "guest of honour" at the inaugural session of the foreign ministers' conclave in Abu Dhabi on March 1-2.

On Tuesday night, Qureshi had spoken with his UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan to express his reservations over the invite to Swaraj.

"Under the current circumstances, it will not be possible for me to attend OIC meeting where Swaraj is present," he said.

Opposition parties in Pakistan have also called for a boycott of the OIC meeting for inviting India as "guest of honour".

"Pakistan should boycott the OIC meeting. It is an insult that our enemies are being invited as a guest of honour when Kashmiris are facing bloodshed," Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Khawaja Asif said on the National Assembly floor.