As Pakistan’s top diplomat made the first trip of its kind to India in 12 years, Islamabad’s envoy to the United Nations praised the security bloc led by China and Russia, which brought the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals together.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) ministerial summit in the west coast city of Goa marks the latest high-level meeting of a growing group of nations seeking to overcome bilateral disputes to enhance security and economic ties, leaving the United States on the sidelines.
Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Munir Akram, told Newsweek that Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s participation in the gathering “reflects our commitment to regional cooperation.”
“Pakistan attaches great importance to the SCO, which is becoming increasingly vibrant,” Akram said. “It is the world’s largest regional organization in terms of geographic scope and population. It covers more than 40 percent of world’s population and around 30 percent of global GDP.
“We are also encouraged by the robust expansion of SCO with new members and partner countries. We believe regional cooperation to promote the SCO vision of peace and cooperation in security and economic connectivity can bring enormous dividends to countries in the region.”
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The SCO began as the “Shanghai Five” in 1996, bringing together China and Russia along with Central Asian nations Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Five years later, the SCO was announced with Uzbekistan joining and, in 2017, India and Pakistan signed on despite their decades-long rivalry.
Throughout its history, the group has welcomed a number of observer states, including Belarus, Mongolia and Iran, as well as a broadening array of dialogue partners, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Egypt, Nepal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and Türkiye.
Among these nations, another pair of foes, Iran and Saudi Arabia, has set out to bolster ties with the SCO. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi signed on to become a formal member during the latest leaders’ summit in Uzbekistan in September, and Saudi King Salman approved his nation’s dialogue partner status in March, weeks after a historic deal brokered by China set the stage for Riyadh and Tehran to restore diplomatic ties.
The relationship between India and Pakistan, however, remains strained. The countries continue to be locked in a standoff over the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir, sparking multiple wars in their 75-year history. Islamabad has increasingly raised calls for dialogue and de-escalation in recent years, but only if New Delhi took steps toward addressing the issues at the heart of their long-standing feud.
“Pakistan has always desired cooperative relations with all its neighbors, including India,” Akram said. “We have consistently advocated constructive engagement and result-oriented dialogue to resolve all outstanding issues, including the core dispute of Jammu and Kashmir. However, unfortunately the conditions don’t exist for peace and dialogue.”
India has accused Pakistan of funding militant groups conducting cross-border operations, while Islamabad has claimed that New Delhi committed human rights abuses in the India-administered portion of Kashmir. The dispute deteriorated in August 2019 when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the majority-Muslim territory’s semi-autonomous status in a measure his administration argued was adopted to crack down on insurgency and support development initiatives.
Pakistani officials have argued that the move violated international law and further poisoned efforts to stabilize ties between Islamabad and New Delhi.
“The developments in 2019 vitiated the bilateral environment,” Akram said. “India should take steps to create a conducive environment for a meaningful and result-oriented dialogue and for long-term peace in South Asia.”
Newsweek has reached out to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, SCO’s press service and the U.S. State Department for comment.
But as unrest continues to plague Kashmir, with reports of five Indian soldiers killed Friday in an explosion blamed on a bomb placed by militants, the SCO event provided a rare opportunity for the top diplomats of India and Pakistan to meet.
In his remarks at the gathering on Friday, Bhutto Zardari said his nation “strongly believes in and fully adheres to the principles of mutual trust, equality, respect for cultural diversity, and the pursuit of shared development enshrined in the original ‘Shanghai Spirit.'” These principles, he argued, “are in perfect alignment with Pakistan’s own vision of enhanced regional economic connectivity and win-win cooperation.”
Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar also emphasized his country’s commitment to the bloc at the forum, saying “India attaches great importance to the development of multifaceted cooperation in the SCO and to the promotion of peace, stability, economic development, prosperity and closer interaction between our people.”
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While China has taken on a more assertive role in international diplomacy, showcased by its success in brokering the agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as its peacemaking efforts amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, Beijing’s role in the feud between India and Pakistan is complicated by its own ongoing territorial feud with New Delhi. The two countries are also mired in a border dispute in the Kashmir region, which led to a 1962 war and continues to provoke occasional unarmed clashes that again turned deadly in 2020.
In addition to providing a venue for Bhutto Zardari and Jaishankar to meet, the SCO ministerial allowed the chance for the Indian top diplomat to hold talks on Thursday with his Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang, who said the two nations home to the world’s largest populations “are in a critical period of achieving modernization.”
“The two countries should draw experience and lessons from history,” Qin said, “steer bilateral relations from a strategic and long-term perspective, respect and learn from each other, contribute to each other’s success, pursue a new path of living in harmony, peaceful development and common revitalization between neighboring major countries, so as to boost their respective national rejuvenation and inject stability and positive energy into world peace and development.
“China is ready to work with India to carry out bilateral consultations and exchanges, step up dialogue and cooperation within multilateral frameworks, and deepen coordination and collaboration on international and regional issues, so as to bring China-India relations back on the track of sound and stable development.”
Qin described the current situation at their disputed boundary as “generally stable” and called on both sides to “continue to implement the important common understandings reached between leaders of the two countries, consolidate existing outcomes, strictly abide by relevant agreements and protocols, work to ease and cool down the border situation, and maintain sustained peace and tranquility in the border areas.”
After their talks, Jaishankar tweeted that the “focus remains on resolving outstanding issues and ensuring peace and tranquility in the border areas.”
While China and Pakistan continue to boost bilateral ties, India’s feud with the People’s Republic has brought New Delhi closer to Washington, which leads the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue along with Australia, India and Japan. At the same time, however, New Delhi maintains close relations with Moscow and has committed to the continuity of this strategic partnership despite Western backlash over Russia’s war in Ukraine, including in statements at the latest SCO gathering.
With India and Pakistan taking advantage of the SCO as a non-Western platform for a growing number of nations to come together, U.S. President Joe Biden‘s administration has emphasized that its ties to New Delhi and Islamabad were not contingent on one another.
Speaking to reporters last month in the leadup to Bhutto Zardari’s trip to India, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said Washington maintained “deep, important relationships with both countries that are not a sum meets all or anything like that.”
