Pakistan PM to virtually attend SCO India meet

— IANS

Islamabad, June 23

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will virtually attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting chaired by India on July 4.

Summit on july 4

The annual SCO summit in virtual format will be held on July 4. In September 2022, the in-person SCO summit was held in the Uzbek city of Samarkand which saw the participation of all top leaders of the grouping, including PM Narendra Modi.

“We have received the official invitation from Indian Prime Minister for our Prime Minister for the virtual meeting of Heads of State of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation that is due to take place on July 4,” a daily quoted a spokesperson at the Foreign Office as saying at a briefing.

“Pakistan will be represented at the summit. We will be making an announcement regarding our participation in coming days,” she said. Earlier this month, the Centre said it was never announced that the July 4 meeting would be held in person.

“As everyone is aware that in the past some years, several events have taken place virtually so taking all factors into account, we decided that the Summit of the SCO Council of Heads of State will be held in a virtual format on July 4,” External Affairs Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said.

The statement came just days after the ministry announced that it would host the annual SCO summit in virtual format on July 4.

In September 2022, the in-person SCO summit was held in the Uzbek city of Samarkand which saw the participation of all top leaders of the grouping, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

India had assumed the rotating chairmanship of the SCO at the Samarkand summit.

The Ministry has said that all the SCO member states — China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — have been invited to attend the virtual summit.

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