Pakistan invites PM Modi to SCO summit amid regional diplomacy buzz

Pakistan has officially invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting, set to take place in Islamabad in October 2024.

During a weekly news briefing, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch confirmed that invitations have been sent to all heads of government of the SCO member states, including Modi, for the Council of Heads of Government (CHG) meeting on October 15-16.

Baloch also noted that Pakistan has already received some confirmations for the event.

The announcement regarding the invitations came shortly after Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that PM Modi would indeed be invited to the regional summit.

This followed earlier denials by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), which refuted media reports claiming that Modi would not attend the SCO summit in Pakistan.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, established on June 15, 2001, in Shanghai, originally by Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, has expanded to include nine member states.

The organization’s founding mechanism was the Shanghai Five. The current member states of the SCO are India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.