Citing health issues, Jaishankar to miss SCO summit in Tianjin

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is not travelling to China for the SCO leaders’ summit. He will also miss out on participating in the important bilateral between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping to be held on Sunday morning.

Sources cited health issues to be the reason behind Jaishankar’s absence from the summit. His absence was also noted at the Tokyo on Friday when Modi met his Japanese counterpart, Shigeru Ishiba, for a bilateral meeting. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) released pictures of the meeting on its handle on social media platform X.

In the picture Modi was flanked to his right by the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. As per the past practice, the EAM would have been to the PM’s left. Today, Modi — after being in Japan for two days — travelled from Japan to Tianjin, China — the venue for the SCO summit.