International: In a significant development, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be visiting Pakistan to lead the Indian delegation at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting on October 15-16, announced the Ministry of External Affairs on Friday. This would be Jaishankar's first visit to Pakistan as India's foreign minister, as Sushma Swaraj was the last EAM to visit Islamabad in 2015.

The announcement came after the ministry confirmed in August that Pakistan had sent an invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the SCO meeting. Pakistan holds the rotating chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG) and in that capacity, will be hosting the two-day in-person SCO Heads of Governments Meeting in October.

In an interesting turn of events, it has now come to light that jailed former Pakistan PM Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has invited Jaishankar to address its ongoing protests against the Shehbaz Sharif-led government in the country. The PTI has been protesting for months demanding Imran's release from prison and the judiciary's independence.

Did Imran Khan's PTI invite Jaishankar to address protests?

As PTI moved to the capital Islamabad to hold massive protests, Pakistan Army troops were deployed here on Saturday to ensure security. The 72-year-old former cricketer-turned-politician Khan refused to postpone the protest despite calls by the government.

Speaking at a show on Geo News, PTI leader and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Advisor to CM Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif said world leaders are coming to Pakistan and "they will be happy to see our democracy and praise their strength". 

Speaking on Jaishankar's arrival to Pakistan later this month, Ali Saif, "We (PTI) would like to invite Jaishankar sahab to join our protest and address our people and see how Pakistan has a strong democracy where every person has a right to protest." He asserted that the PTI is abiding by democratic principles in protesting against the government.

Jaishankar's upcoming visit to Pakistan

The SCO event in Pakistan will be preceded by a ministerial meeting and several rounds of senior officials’ meetings focused on financial, economic, socio-cultural, and humanitarian cooperation among the SCO member states. While Jaishankar will address the multilateral meeting, the EAM cleared the air about any speculations on India-Pakistan bilateral interactions.

"It (visit) will be for a multilateral event. I'm not going there to discuss India-Pakistan relations. I'm going there to be a good member of the SCO. But, you know, since I'm a courteous and civil person, I will behave myself accordingly," he said on Saturday.

India and Pakistan have a long history of strained relations, primarily due to the Kashmir issue as well as the cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan. India has been maintaining that it desires normal neighbourly relations with Pakistan while insisting that the onus is on Islamabad to create an environment that is free of terror and hostility. Pakistan downgraded its ties with India after the Indian Parliament abrogated Article 370 on August 5, 2019.

On several occasions, Jaishankar had issued tersely-worded statements accusing Pakistan of not doing enough to stem cross-border terrorism. At the recent UN General Assembly debate, he said Pakistan's cross-border terrorism will never succeed and its actions will "certainly have consequences", stressing that it is "karma" that the country's ills are now consuming its own society.