ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar did not hold a formal meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit (SCO), the foreign office clarified Thursday, saying that viral images of the two officials seated together at a luncheon were simply an exchange of pleasantries.
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan are bitter adversaries with longstanding political tensions, having fought three wars and numerous skirmishes since they were carved out of the subcontinent’s partition in 1947.
The Indian minister was the first top official from New Delhi to visit Pakistan after nearly a decade. During the visit, a picture of Dar and Jaishankar was shared by media outlets, where the two ministers could be seen engaged in a conversation while sharing a seat next to each other at the official SCO lunch.
This led to speculations and conjectures by political analysts, with some saying the two officials were discussing cricket and trying to break the ice between the arch-rival neighbors.
“There has been no formal meeting between Pakistan and India at the foreign minister’s level including at the SCO,” foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said on Thursday.
She said it was common for delegations in multilateral settings to “exchange pleasantries” and hold informal conversations over lunch and dinner, especially between the hosts and participating guests.
Relations between India and Pakistan have been particularly sour since 2019 when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the limited autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir. The move was celebrated across India but led Pakistan to suspend bilateral trade and downgrade diplomatic ties with New Delhi.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan but claimed by both in full.
Before departing Pakistan, Jaishankar thanked Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Deputy PM Dar and the Pakistan government for the “hospitalities and courtesies” extended to him during the visit.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Ataullah Tarar said that none of the two countries requested a bilateral meeting, though he termed the Indian minister’s presence at the SCO as an “ice breaker.”
