A major and important event is being held in neighboring Pakistan next year, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be specially invited to attend. The Pakistani government itself has given strong indications of this. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry has stated that a major Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit will be held in the country’s capital, Islamabad, in 2027. For this, formal invitations will be sent to all the heads of state and heads of all the organization’s member countries, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. For your information, Pakistan is going to assume the presidency of the SCO for the year 2026-27, and this grand event is being organized under this important responsibility.
Find out what the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said in its press briefing.
During the weekly press briefing held by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry on July 30th, the Ministry’s spokesperson made several significant and surprising revelations regarding India and the upcoming SCO Summit. During this briefing, when a journalist asked whether Indian Foreign Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar had requested a bilateral meeting with the Pakistani Foreign Minister during the ASEAN Summit in Manila, and also asked whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be invited to the SCO Summit in Islamabad next year, the Pakistani spokesperson clarified that he was unaware of any request from India for a meeting during the ARF meeting in Manila. However, regarding the invitation to the SCO Summit, he confirmed that all member countries of the organization would be invited at the head of state level, and that as the host country, Pakistan has a constitutional obligation to send invitations to all the heads of state for this major summit.
Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi visit Pakistan or will a representative be sent?
Although Pakistan is reportedly sending a formal invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, diplomatic experts believe that PM Modi’s visit to Pakistan appears highly unlikely. As a responsible and active member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), India could send another senior minister or a larger delegation to Pakistan. This has been seen before when Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar visited Pakistan in October 2024. This was the first visit by a senior Indian minister to Pakistan in nearly a decade, when he traveled to Islamabad to attend the 23rd meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of Government. Even then, the Indian government sent its Foreign Minister as its representative, not Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Foreign Minister Jaishankar had then stated very clearly that his visit was not intended to improve or discuss bilateral relations between India and Pakistan, but merely to participate in a multilateral event as a good member of the SCO.
Why is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) considered so special and influential?
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is known worldwide as a highly influential economic and security organization, having become one of the largest inter-regional international organizations globally. It was established in 2001 during a high-level summit held in Shanghai, China, by the presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Subsequently, in 2017, both India and Pakistan became permanent members of this important organization. Currently, Iran and Belarus are among its other major member countries. Now that Pakistan is going to get the chairmanship of SCO for the year 2026-27, and recently Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar also participated in the SCO Foreign Ministers’ meeting held in the Kyrgyz Republic, in the coming days this diplomatic platform is going to become a major centre of discussion between India and Pakistan.