Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif welcomed India’s Minister for External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and other world leaders to the dinner for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) first day on Tuesday.
The SCO comprises China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus — with 16 more countries affiliated as observers or “dialogue partners”.
Pakistan became a full member of the SCO at its 2017 summit in Kazakhstan, which was attended by ex-PM Nawaz Sharif, who recently also expressed hope for reviving ties with India.
In his capacity as the current Chair of the Council of the Heads of Government (CHG), Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will preside over the summit.
Right before the SCO dinner, footage from the venue showed PM Shehbaz welcoming and shaking hands with dignitaries, including India’s Jaishankar, with whom he held a brief conversation.
Jaishankar arrived in Pakistan today — the first such visit in nearly a decade. State-run PTV showed images of Jaishankar being received by the Director General for South Asia at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ilyas Mehmood Nizami, and other Pakistani officials after his plane touched down at the Nur Khan Airbase just before 3:30pm.
