With Shanghai Cooperation Organisation set to admit India and Pakistan amid growing rancour over their Nuclear Supplies Group membership bid, a Chinese state-run daily expressed concern on Friday that the hostility between them may have a "negative effect" on the security grouping.
At least 3,000 soldiers from China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, India and Pakistan participated in the drill.
He said countries should work for promoting open and inclusive cooperation for win-win outcomes.
India and Pakistan's admission to the Beijing-backed Shanghai Cooperation Organisation will be formalised at the grouping's summit in Kazakhstan next week, China said on Thursday.
In an interaction with a group of Indian journalists, the three-time prime minister and president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N described Jaishankar's visit as a "good opening" and said both sides should now engage and move forward.
However, there will be no bilateral meetings between Swaraj, Sitharaman with their Pakistani counterparts.
Pakistan-India bilateral relations remained frozen for the fourth year over the vexed Kashmir issue but analysts hope the strained ties could be repaired if Nawaz Sharif becomes the prime minister for a record fourth time in the general elections in February in the absence of his main challenger Imran Khan who is in jail in multiple cases.
It will be for the first time since Independence that India and Pakistan will both be part of a military exercise.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have secured a rare concession from Pakistan that 'terrorism' and not the issue of Kashmir be the central theme of the India-Pakistan dialogue.
The civilian leadership informed the military authorities that Sharif's hour-long meeting with Jindal was a part of back-channel diplomacy. And Jindal had the backing of some important Indian officials for the meeting to defuse ongoing tension between the two countries, the report said.
'The new order cometh, sweeping out the old,' notes Ambassador B S Prakash.
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