While the ministerial meetings started in Islamabad on Thursday in preparation for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation-SCO-summit next month, Pakistan on Thursday said that 'it is not so sure about the level and mode of participation' from India in the heads of state conference.
The SCO heads of state meeting would be held here on Oct 15-16 for which leaders of the member nations have already been formally invited, said the Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch while talking to the weekly press briefing here.
She said the 23rd Meeting of the Ministers for Foreign Economic and Foreign Trade Activity of the SCO members started in Islamabad, which was preceded by a meeting of the Commission of Senior Officials from September 10-11 to negotiate the documents to be adopted by the SCO members responsible for Foreign Economic and Foreign Trade Activities.
The two-day Ministerial Meeting is a regular annual mechanism of SCO and would make an important contribution in the lead-up to the Head of State Meeting in Islamabad," she said.
As the process for the mega event kick-started, questions came up as to whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi would attend the meet, and if he did, if that would be in physical or virtual mode.
The spokesperson answered one such question and said that the Prime Minister of Pakistan had extended invitations to the Heads of government of all SCO member states. "At this point, I'm not aware of any communication from the Indian government regarding their representation," she said.
Among them, she said that the Indian Vice Minister of Commerce and Industry is attending virtually in this 23rd Meeting of the Ministers for Foreign Economic and Foreign Trade Activity of the SCO members. It is apart from India that the Vice Minister of the National Economy of Kazakhstan is attending virtually.
The in-person attendees include representatives from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Iran, the Kyrgyz Republic, China, and Russia. Baloch further said that SCO can contribute a great deal to the development and security of this region, and Pakistan remains committed to working within the SCO framework for finding solutions toward regional prosperity.
The Spokesperson further said that the Secretary General of International Maritime Organization-IMO, Arsenio Antonio Dominguez Velasco, who arrived in Pakistan last night for three-day visit, enjoys a historic distinction of first-ever visit to Pakistan by any Secretary General of IMO.
Secretary-General Velasco will meet with Pakistan's leadership and senior Government officials in Islamabad and Karachi.
Pakistan now holds the rotating chairship of the SCO Council of Heads of Government and will therefore host an in-person SCO Heads of Government meeting for two days in October.
The SCO's list of member states now includes nine countries: India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyz, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The Beijing-based SCO has emerged as a powerful economic and security bloc, one of the largest trans-regional international organisations. It added Belarus as its 10th member.
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