Civil person, will behave myself: S Jaishankar's quip on Pak visit for SCO meet

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar announced that his upcoming visit to Pakistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit later this month will focus on the multilateral event rather than India-Pakistan relations.

In Short

• Jaishankar to visit Pakistan for SCO summit, not bilateral talks.
• Visit marks first by high-ranking Indian minister in nearly a decade.
• SCO summit hosted by Pakistan on October 15-16.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who is scheduled to visit Pakistan later this month for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, said on Saturday that his visit to the neighbouring country is for a multilateral event, not for discussions on India-Pakistan relations.

"It (visit) will be for a multilateral event. I'm not going there to discuss India-Pakistan relations. I'm going there to be a good member of the SCO. But, you know, since I'm a courteous and civil person, I will behave myself accordingly,” the Union Minister said.

Jaishankar noted that typically the Prime Minister attends such high-level meetings with heads of state, but "it changes" sometimes.

“So your question, I think, is, what am I planning for it? Of course, I'm planning to go... In my business, you plan for everything which you're going to do, and for a lot of things which you're not going to do and which could also happen. I mean, you plan for that as well,” he said.

Pakistan is hosting the SCO summit in Islamabad on October 15-16. India confirmed on August 30 that it had received an invitation from Pakistan for the upcoming summit.

Jaishankar’s trip to Islamabad will mark the first visit by a high-ranking Indian minister to the country in nearly a decade. The last external affairs minister to visit Pakistan was Sushma Swaraj, who travelled to Islamabad in December 2015 to attend a conference on Afghanistan.

The SCO was founded as a political union of Central Asian nations--Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan--to discuss security and economic matters. India and Pakistan became permanent members in 2017.

‘MIDDLE EAST IS CAUSE OF GREAT CONCERN, DEEP WORRY’

The External Affairs Minister further stated that the conflict situation in the Middle East is a “great cause of concern,” as Israel intensifies its attacks in Lebanon and a conflict with Iran is likely imminent.

"The Middle East is not an opportunity. The Middle East is a cause of great concern and deep worry. The conflict is widening - what we saw as a terrorist attack, then the response, then we saw what happened in Gaza. Now you are seeing it in exchange in Lebanon, between Israel and Iran. The Houthis are firing on the Red Sea. This is actually costing us. It's not that somebody is neutral and you benefit,” he said.

Jaishankar added, “... I would say honestly today, whether it is the conflict in Ukraine or the conflict in the Middle East West Asia, these are big factors of instability, big factors of concern. I think the entire world, including us, is worried about it."