By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: A senior Indian diplomat has travelled to Pakistan for talks under Islamabad’s chairmanship of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), marking a rare diplomatic contact between the neighbours more than a year after they fought a four-day military conflict.
Alok Dimri, India’s national coordinator for the SCO, is an additional secretary in the external affairs ministry’s Multilateral Economic Relations Division. He led his country’s delegation to a three-day meeting of national coordinators in Islamabad, described by Pakistani media as the first visit by an Indian delegation to the country in two years. The talks ended on Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters in the Pakistani capital, Dimri said it was his first time on Pakistani soil. “For me, this is the first opportunity to come to Pakistani soil, and through the SCO, these programs will continue throughout the year and will culminate with the Islamabad Summit,” he said.
He described the gathering in low-key terms. “So, this is an annual rotational ritual of the SCO in which we are participating, and our expectations are that there will be new progress in all the ongoing cooperation verticals of the SCO and that we will move forward,” he said.
The visit takes place against a backdrop of deep mistrust. India and Pakistan fought for four days in May last year, attacking each other with artillery, fighter jets, missiles and drones. That fighting followed the Pahalgam attack in April 2025. The two countries have had no ambassadors in each other’s capitals since they downgraded diplomatic relations over Kashmir in 2019, and their missions have since been led by a charge d’affaires.
Official engagement has been limited in recent years and has largely taken place in multilateral forums such as the SCO rather than in bilateral talks. India’s external affairs minister, S Jaishankar, travelled to Islamabad in October 2024 for a meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of Government, the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian foreign minister in nearly nine years.
Dimri said the bloc gave member states a platform to work together on regional connectivity, trade and transit.
“This is a journey in which the member states of the Eurasian and Asian landmass have come together on the SCO platform, and we have designed an agenda for our well-being, prosperity and welfare,” he said. “Connectivity is very important in this, regional connectivity, trade and transit. These are some of the important issues that have been discussed, and progress is being made going forward.”
He also pointed to a change in how the organisation works. Discussions among members have so far taken place in Russian and Chinese. “Now, perhaps, English may also be introduced under the Pakistani presidency,” Dimri said, calling it an “important” occasion for the bloc. In a video posted by Pakistan’s foreign ministry, he welcomed the recent decision to add English as an official and working language alongside Russian and Chinese, to be applied for the first time at meetings in Pakistan.
The Indian diplomat spoke warmly of the cultural side of the programme and said he hoped to see more of the country. “My first visit has only been to Islamabad so far. The places I wanted to see were perhaps Lahore, Sialkot and Faisalabad,” he said. Meetings are held in different cities through the year, he added, and Lahore has been designated an SCO Tourism and Cultural Capital for 2026-27.
“There will be activities throughout the year, so we hope that through these activities, we will get the opportunity to see more of Pakistan and also meet more people,” he said.
Delegates visited the Pakistan National Council of the Arts, where they were introduced to the country’s cultural heritage and artistic traditions. They also toured the Naseer Bunda Hockey Stadium and were briefed on arrangements for the SCO Hockey Tournament, which runs from 20 November to 2 December.
India has its own event in the calendar. Dimri said SCO leaders agreed at the Bishkek summit that a Civilisation Dialogue Forum, proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, should be set up, and India is due to host its first edition on 20 November.
The national coordinators took stock of progress on key initiatives and exchanged views on strengthening coordination among members. They also discussed how to put Pakistan’s chairmanship priorities into effect under its theme, “Turning Vision into Action: Connectivity, Innovation and Shared Prosperity”, according to the Pakistani foreign ministry. They discussed cooperation in political, trade, economic, cultural and humanitarian areas, as well as preparations for upcoming SCO meetings. Pakistan’s national coordinator, Mohammad Faisal, chaired the meeting.
The coordinators also called on Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, who addressed them at the foreign ministry alongside senior representatives of the SCO Secretariat and its Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure. According to a foreign office statement, Dar reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to an “open, inclusive, and constructive Chairmanship” guided by the “Shanghai Spirit” of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation and common development. He stressed the need to translate the bloc’s shared vision into practical cooperation and “tangible outcomes”.
The foreign ministry said the meeting “concluded with agreed outcomes”, with the coordinators reaffirming their commitment to the organisation’s goals through “continued engagement and practical cooperation”.
Pakistan took over the 2026-27 chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of State at a leaders’ summit in Bishkek earlier this month. It will run the bloc’s programme until it hosts the next summit of leaders in Islamabad in 2027. The Council of Heads of State is the organisation’s highest decision-making body. The Council of National Coordinators manages interaction among members and helps prepare meetings of senior bodies. Islamabad previously hosted a summit of prime ministers in October 2024.
The SCO was founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Pakistan and India became full members in 2017, Iran joined in 2023 and Belarus became the 10th member in 2024.
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