It will be for the first time in nearly nine years India's external affairs minister will travel to Pakistan even as the ties between the two neighbours remained frosty over the Kashmir issue and cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
India and Pakistan should move from confrontation to cooperation, Pakistan's High Commissioner Abdul Basit on Tuesday said while adding that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is keen to normalise bilateral relations.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has expressed readiness to join hands with India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to "properly handle" issues related to the situation on the ground in the border areas, amid the protracted border row in eastern Ladakh.
Pakistan high commission sources said it has been an usual practice to invite the Kashmiri separatist leaders on such occasions.
Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif will attend the SCO defence ministers' meeting in New Delhi on Friday through virtual mode, according to an official readout.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang reiterated that the situation at the India-China border is generally stable and both sides should consolidate the present achievements and strictly abide by the relevant agreements while pushing for further cooling and easing of the conditions for sustainable peace and tranquillity at the frontier.
The PM said that countries sponsoring, aiding and funding terrorism must be held accountable.
Modi enquired about Sharif, his mother and family.
In the first top-level contact between India and Pakistan after Mumbai attacks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari will meet in Russia on the sidelines of a multilateral summit next week to break ice in the bilateral ties.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is still a developing entity and it is essentially due to Russian and Chinese efforts. The moot question is can India benefit by attending it?
The military exercise will take place under the framework of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in the Ural mountains of Russia.
If one concentrates solely on areas of concern, one will develop an unduly pessimistic attitude. If one looks only at the galloping trade and proliferating exchanges of visits, there could be unwarranted over-optimism. There is a need for a balanced perspective.
This will be the fourth visit of Modi to China after he came to power in 2014.
After visiting two Central Asian countries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Ufa on Wednesday on a three-day trip during which he will attend the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summits.
National Security Advisor Ajit Doval has pitched for an 'action plan' against Pakistan-based terror groups Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed under the framework of eight-nation grouping Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and called for expeditiously bringing the perpetrators of terror attacks to justice.
According to the photos published by the Pakistani media, Swaraj and Qureshi were seen seated next to each other.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on Friday that the group should consider staging its own major sporting competition.
Dr Singh and Zardari shook hands after they posed for a group photo with leaders of other Shanghai Cooperation Organisation member nations -- Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.
Declaring India's readiness to contribute to global efforts to overcome the economic crisis, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Yekaterinburg on Monday night to attend the Summits of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and Brazil-Russia-India-China.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Ufa on Friday after more than a year.
"India has consistently articulated its desire to play a more constructive and meaningful role as an observer at the SCO," External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said, addressing the 10th summit of the forum in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent.
It would be the highest level visit to India by any Pakistani leader in recent years and a possible opportunity to break the ice between the two nations.
The banned Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the blast was a suicide attack targeting a convoy of Chinese engineers and investors leaving the Jinnah International Airport.
In the midst of a spat between India and China, an official Chinese newspaper on Friday spoke of a possible meeting between the prime ministers of the two countries next week in Thailand.
In the midst of a war of words between the two countries, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Wednesday expressed his desire to meet his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh.The Chinese leader's remarks come a day after Beijing raked up its claim over Arunachal Pradesh, questioning Prime Minister Singh's visit there on October 3. India hit back on Wednesday, reacting strongly to Chinese plans to get involved in projects in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.
Addressing the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Yekaterinburg (Russia), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday said that India is seeking an external environment conducive to its sustained high economic growth which is necessary to meet its developmental objectives.
A five-point agreement was reached between Jaishankar and Wang at a meeting in Moscow on September 10 on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation conclave.
India and China on Wednesday held 'constructive' and 'forward-looking' diplomatic talks to resolve the over four-year border standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh but there was clear no indication of any breakthrough.
In the two-day summit, the SCO will kick off the process of India's accession to the grouping as a full-fledged member along with Pakistan.
The prime minister will leave for the Indonesian city of Bali on Monday on a three-day visit to attend the summit that is expected to deliberate extensively on pressing global challenges including the Ukraine conflict and its implications.
"Reports of PM Modi not meeting Putin due to nuclear threat is baseless. The meeting is not taking place due to scheduling issues," sources told ANI.
In his opening remarks at the virtual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Modi also said that some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument of their policy and the grouping must not hesitate to criticise them.
Modi will hold several bilateral meetings with the leaders of the SCO member countries including China's Xi Jinping.
Jaishankar said that both sides also exchanged views on the next steps in the India-China bilateral ties.
India's full membership of the grouping would extend its reach to the Central Asian region in whose peace and stability it is a major stakeholder, says Sana Hashmi.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is in Moscow on a four-day visit to attend the meeting of foreign ministers of the SCO of which both India and China are members.
It is important the SCO focus strongly on economic development and regional integration that leads to greater benefits for the least developed regions of member-countries, writes Sana Hashmi.
'Victims of terrorism do not sit together with its perpetrators to discuss terrorism.'
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