Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif warmly welcomed Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar along with other international leaders during a dinner marking the first day of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit on Tuesday.

While the main SCO meeting will take place on Wednesday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif hosted a welcome dinner for delegates on Tuesday. The Foreign Office said the premier will also hold bilateral meetings on the sidelines.

Live footage showed Pakistan’s PM and Indian FM having a brief chat while shaking hands.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday, the first top Delhi diplomat to visit their arch-rival neighbour in nearly a decade.

Jaishankar’s plane landed just before 3:30pm (1030 GMT) at the Nur Khan Airbase in Rawalpindi, a foreign office official said. DG South Asia Ilyas Nizami received him at the airport.

According to Indian journalist Barkha Dutt, Jaishankar was “one of the most powerful and influential” ministers of the government.

“He is representing Modi,” she said while appearing on the Aaj News show Spotlight with Munizae Jahangir on Monday.

Leaders arrive in Islamabad for Shanghai Cooperation gathering

Kyrgyz Prime Minister Akylbek Zhaparov landed in Islamabad on Tuesday to attend a heads-of-government gathering of the SCO, the host country said, with the city under tight security lockdown.

The meeting of the SCO, a Eurasian security and political group formed in 2001 by Russia and China, is the highest profile event hosted by the troubled South Asian nation in years.

Chinese Premiere Li Qiang is already in Pakistan, while seven more prime ministers of other member and observer states, including Russian Premier Mikhail Mishustin, will also be participating in person.

The event has garnered more attention with India, Pakistan’s neighbour and arch-rival, sending External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s visit to Pakistan as relations remain frosty between the two nuclear powers.

The SCO also includes Iran, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The Prime Ministers of Belarus and Mongolia are also attending.

The SCO meeting will discuss ongoing cooperation in the fields of economy and trade, Pakistan’s Foreign Office said. Observers believe the bloc seeks to counter Western influence in the region.

Pakistan’s government has announced a three-day public holiday in Islamabad, with schools and businesses shut and large contingents of police and paramilitary forces deployed.

Pakistani army troops will be responsible for the security of the capital’s Red Zone, the location of Parliament and a diplomatic enclave and where most of the SCO meetings will take place, according to the interior ministry.

The threat alert has been high in the South Asian nation ahead of the SCO summit, especially after the killing of two Chinese engineers on Oct 6 and shooting deaths of 21 miners on Oct 11.

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Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch emphasized that the SCO summit “will focus on economic matters, trade, and connectivity.”

She highlighted the attendance of heads of state as a “testament to the confidence in Pakistan’s organisational capabilities.”

More to follow…