New Delhi: Over the next two months, India will be hosting the high-level political segment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). While the invitations have gone out from India as the chair, the signals on Pakistan’s participation have been mixed.
Here is a quick guide to what has been observed so far and how they may relate to the decision-making process regarding a potential visit from Pakistan.
Why is there speculation about whether leaders from Pakistan will visit India?
As the annual chair of the seven-member Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, India is responsible for hosting all meetings under its purview. While there are numerous meetings held throughout the year, the most important one is the leaders’ summit. Typically, foreign ministers, defence ministers, and national security advisers hold meetings leading up to the summit.
In the last week of April, defence ministers are meeting in New Delhi, followed by the crucial gathering of the foreign ministers at Goa on May 4-5. In between, there are also other ministerial meetings for climate, health and information technology.
The leaders’ summit was earlier planned for the end of June, but it has been postponed due to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the United States. A new date in July has been proposed, but it has not yet been finalised as RSVPs from various capitals have not yet arrived.
What is the reason behind the uncertainty surrounding Pakistan’s participation?
Speculation has arisen about the possibility of top political figures from Islamabad crossing the border due to the severely damaged India-Pakistan relations, which have resulted in a near-complete freeze and downgrading of diplomatic ties.
The last time that a bilateral visit took place was in 2015 when PM Modi made an unexpected detour to Lahore.
Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi in Lahore. Photo: PMO
After the short-lived bout of optimism, relations dipped within a month over the terror attack at the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot. The 2016 “surgical strikes” and the 2019 cross-border strikes further deteriorated the relationship. Thereafter, the dilution of Article 370 that changed the constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir state led the Imran Khan government to take several drastic steps – the recall of ambassadors to cutting off trade ties – which have made it difficult to find a way to move forward.
The last visit by a Pakistan prime minister to India was in 2014, at Modi’s swearing-in ceremony. In December 2016, the Pakistan PM’s foreign affairs advisor Sartaj Aziz, who was seen as the de-facto foreign minister, was on Indian soil for the Heart of Asia conference at Amritsar. The previous stand-alone bilateral trip by a Pakistani foreign minister was Hina Rabbani Khar’s visit in 2012.
What has Pakistan said officialy, so far, on the invitations?
In the regular weekly briefings of the Pakistan foreign office, it has become customary to announce the attendance of a Pakistani official at the SCO meetings. The usual statement affirms that Pakistan is an “active member” and will take part in “all SCO activities”. However, the spokesperson for the Pakistan foreign office refrained from confirming the country’s participation in the forthcoming SCO meetings, adding that when the “decision is taken, we will share it with everyone”.
Pakistan’s advisors to the prime minister, who have ministerial rank, have virtually attended most of the meetings hosted by India. The Pakistan energy minister Khurram Dastgir Khan virtually participated at the SCO Ministers of Energy meeting on March 14. There was also virtual representation from Islamabad at the meeting of SCO chief justices and national security advisors.
So far, Pakistan’s in-person attendance has been through its Charge d’Affaires in New Delhi. Till the article was published, the only official to travel to India for a meeting has been the Pakistan tourism board advisor for a meeting on shared Buddhist heritage among SCO countries.
So, what kind of signals is Pakistan sending?
Unofficially, Pakistani leaders have assured at closed-door events with other countries that they will not let the SCO go the “SAARC way”.
Pakistan’s concern about SCO not going down the path of ‘SAARC’ may not hold water, if examined. Unlike the South Asian regional group, neither India nor Pakistan is at the core of SCO. That place is reserved for China and Russia.
However, the sentiment is certainly useful to justify the presence at the SCO. It also echoed Sartaj Aziz’s argument for travelling to the Heart of Asia ministerial meeting in India. “We wanted to demonstrate that the shadow of bilateral tensions should not fall on multilateral events like India did with SAARC,” said Aziz in December 2016. Less than three months before Aziz flew to Amritsar, India withdrew from the Islamabad summit of SAARC, along with Afghanistan, Bhutan and Bangladesh.
In a YouTube talk show on March 19, Pakistani journalist Azaz Syed of Geo News said that as per his sources, the Pakistan government had decided to send foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and defence minister Asif Khwaja, if no other ‘obstacle’ comes before that meeting.
India had also calculated that Pakistan would not risk missing high-level SCO meetings as the vitality of the regional organisation is important to China. The projection of SCO as a viable multilateral grouping is especially important when both China and Russia are diplomatically isolated by the West.
But, the decision-making doesn’t seem to be having a smooth run. The Pakistani newspaper Express Tribune reported on April 5 that while a decision was yet to be made on attending the key SCO ministerial meetings, an “initial assessment” was not positive.
The Express Tribune quoted sources as stating, “There is a feeling that even if Pakistan intends to send its ministers, the Modi government may create a situation where it will become difficult for us to attend the SCO ministerial meetings”.
Although certain segments of Pakistan’s establishment have claimed that any attempt at outreach is pointless at the moment due to the upcoming Indian elections, there is a comparable sentiment in certain parts of New Delhi that the timing is inappropriate given the unstable political climate in Pakistan.
If a visit does take place, what will it mean for bilateral ties?
No one expects any proposed visit by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, or even Minister of State Hina Rabbani Khar to act as a breakthrough – especially since both governments in India and Pakistan would have to face an election within a year. Since both sides have lost practice in having diplomatic encounters, the perception was that a visit for a multilateral summit would give an adequate excuse to break the mould, rather than a bilateral visit. It could also act as a soft launch for any baby steps required to normalise the relationship that may only happen after a new government takes over in both countries.
The key question that remains is what will motivate either country to reach out. Beset with a country facing economic collapse and constitutional crisis, the Pakistani establishment has not been averse to finding a way out of the current state of ties with India.
But, New Delhi remains more wary, not convinced that a political outreach would have any productive outcome, either domestically or bilaterally. Instead, it may start with smaller steps like the revival of the India-Pakistan joint judicial committee on prisoners, which last met in 2013. While previous attempts to revive it have been a non-starter, sources indicate that India has not given up and is searching for former judges to nominate to the committee.