India invites Pakistan to SCO forum a year after stand-off

The invite to Aurangzeb Khan Khichi is the first from New Delhi to a Pakistani official since Operation Sindoor last year

India has invited Pakistan to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meet in Delhi, the first such invite since the armed stand-off between the two nuclear-armed South Asian countries last year.

New Delhi invited Pakistani Minister for National Heritage and Culture Aurangzeb Khan Khichi to the first SCO civilizational Dialogue Forum to be held on November 20-22.

This is the first time a Pakistani minister is being invited by India since the clash. The stand-off, dubbed Operation Sindoor by New Delhi, followed a terror attack in Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir that killed more than a score of Indian civilians.

If Khichi accepts the invite, it will be the first time since the SCO foreign ministers’ meeting in Goa in 2023 – attended by Bhilawal Bhutto – that a Pakistani minister would visit India. The forum is aimed at promoting cultural relations between member countries and promoting mutual understanding.

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Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, who announced the invites at the SCO Council of Heads of Government meeting in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, also voiced New Delhi’s apprehensions about facilitators of terrorism but without mentioning Pakistan.

“There should be no double standards in dealing with terrorism, and no place for those who finance, support or provide safe havens to terrorists. The entire ecosystem of terrorism must be firmly and collectively dismantled,” Singh said in the presence of Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar.

The SCO comprises ten member states – Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – and 15 dialogue partners, in addition to Afghanistan and Mongolia as observers.