The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: After nearly nine years, Union external affairs minister S. Jaishankar will visit Pakistan for the first time to take part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Heads of Government meeting later this month.
“On our participation, EAM will lead our delegation to participate in the SCO summit which will be held at Islamabad on 15 and 16 October,” said MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal at the media briefing on Friday.
The last time a Union minister visited Pakistan was when then-home minister Rajnath Singh attended a South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation meeting in August 2016.
The last external affairs minister to have visited Pakistan was Sushma Swaraj in December 2015.
Less than a month later, terrorists attacked the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot on January 1, 2016, triggering a sharp decline in relations. After India diluted Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional status in 2019, Pakistan downgraded ties, recalling its high commissioner and halting trade.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto visited India for the SCO foreign ministers’ meeting in Goa in 2023. However, as anticipated, the visit quickly devolved into an exchange of verbal volleys between the two neighbours.
When asked whether this visit should be seen as a sign of thaw in ties, MEA spokesperson said that the minister’s visit to Pakistan should only be seen through the lens of his participation at a multilateral summit.
India had little choice but to participate in the summit in Pakistan, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi had already skipped the previous heads of state summit in June. Coupled with India’s decision to make last year’s SCO summit virtual, another absence at the Islamabad meeting would likely be viewed as a snub to Russia, a key stakeholder in the group and a close ally of New Delhi.
This article was updated at 7:30 pm to correct the name of the last Union minister to have visited Pakistan.