‘Going to Islamabad for multilateral event, not to discuss Indo-Pak ties’

PAKISTAN HOSTING SCO COUNCIL OF HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEET

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A day after India announced that External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will travel to Islamabad to attend a key meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) mid-October, he said he was going to Pakistan for a "multilateral event" and not to discuss Indo-Pak relations.

He said this in response to a query during an interaction after he delivered the Sardar Patel Lecture on Governance organised by IC Centre for Governance here.

"Yes, I am scheduled to go to Pakistan in the middle of this month, and that is for a meeting of the SCO Heads of Government. Normally, prime ministers go to high-level meetings of heads of state, and one of the ministers goes for the heads of government meeting, so it's in line with the tradition," he said.

"It so happens that the meeting is taking place in Pakistan, because like us they are a relatively recent member,” Jaishankar said.

Pakistan is hosting the SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG) meeting on October 15 and 16.