Pakistan has sent a formal invitation to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Heads of State and Government Summit, which is scheduled to be held in Islamabad in mid-October, official sources confirmed on Sunday.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister extended the invitation to the SCO Summit on October 15-16.
According to sources, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif invited Modi and other SCO leaders to a gathering of regional leaders in Islamabad on October 15 and 16. This is the first time in eight years that Pakistan has invited an Indian leader.
Modi was last invited to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in 2016. After India’s boycott, the summit never took place and the regional organization has been largely inactive since then.
However, it will not be easy for Modi to skip the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, given the presence of other powerful countries. Modi may be involved virtually, if not personally, as diplomatic sources doubted whether the Indian prime minister would visit Pakistan given the current state of bilateral relations.