No Meeting Planned Between PM Modi and Imran Khan at SCO Summit: Govt

India on Thursday said that there is no bilateral meeting planned between PM Modi and Pakistan premier Imran Khan on the sideline of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek.

“To the best of my knowledge no meeting has been planned between PM Modi and Pakistan PM Imran Khan,” said Raveesh Kumar, spokesperson of the ministry of external affairs.

Relations between India and Pakistan soured after a suicide attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed that killed 40 Indian troopers on February 14. India retaliated with an air strike on a JeM facility at Balakot in Pakistan and this was followed by an aerial engagement along the Line of Control during which an Indian combat jet was shot down and its pilot captured and briefly detained by Pakistan.

India and Pakistan have not had any structured dialogue for more than a decade following the 2008 Mumbai attacks by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba. Seven men were arrested in connection with the attacks in Pakistan but none of them have been prosecuted so far. India has linked any resumption of dialogue between the two countries to Pakistan cracking down on cross-border terror.

SCO is a Eurasian political, economic and security alliance, which was created on June 15, 2001, in Shanghai, China, by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Uzbekistan. In 2017, India was admitted as a full-time member of the SCO.

Source:HT

Image Courtesy: China in Central Asia