Islamabad, New Delhi strike cordial SCO note

Despite a fresh exchange of sharp rhetoric between Pakistan and India at the United Nations General Assembly, the two sides appeared to set aside their differences during a multilateral engagement in Islamabad, as India's national coordinator for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) warmly greeted the Pakistan's foreign minister with public handshake. Alok Dimri, India's SCO National Coordinator and an Additional Secretary at the Ministry of External Affairs, was among the national coordinators attending the first meeting of the SCO Council of National Coordinators under Pakistan's chairmanship of the organisation. The three-day meeting concluded in Islamabad on Wednesday with the participating national coordinators calling on Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A video released by the Foreign Office showed Dimri warmly greeted Dar with a handshake. The Indian official was subsequently seen standing between Dar and Pakistan's National Coordinator for the SCO Dr Muhammad Faisal, in what was a strikingly cordial visual given the state of bilateral relations. The interaction assumed added significance because India and Pakistan had only recently traded barbs at the UN General Assembly in New York. Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar had accused Pakistan of being a "serial practitioner of terrorism" while responding to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's address to the UNGA. Islamabad, meanwhile, strongly rejected India's allegations and defended Pakistan's position on the Kashmir dispute and the 2025 military confrontation between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. Yet the tone in Islamabad was markedly different. Speaking to Pakistan Television during his visit, Dimri described his first trip to Pakistan positively and said he was happy to be in Islamabad. He also expressed a desire to visit Lahore, Faisalabad and Sialkot. "I got to visit Pakistan for the first time. I am happy to visit Islamabad," Dimri said, according to footage released by the Foreign Office. He said Lahore had been designated an SCO cultural city and suggested that there would be opportunities for the Indian delegation to participate in cultural activities during Pakistan's year-long chairmanship. Dimri also spoke positively about the SCO's broader agenda, highlighting connectivity, trade, transit and regional prosperity. His visit marks an important Indian participation in an SCO meeting hosted by Pakistan. While India has maintained that bilateral engagement with Pakistan requires a conducive environment, New Delhi has continued to participate in multilateral SCO processes. The Islamabad meeting was among the first such senior-level Indian engagements in Pakistan since bilateral ties deteriorated sharply. Pakistan assumed the SCO's rotating chairmanship for 2026-27 on September 1 and has chosen "Turning Vision into Action: Connectivity, Innovation and Shared Prosperity" as the theme of its presidency. The national coordinators reviewed the programme of activities planned under Pakistan's chairmanship and discussed preparations for forthcoming SCO meetings and events. The delegations also visited the Pakistan National Council of the Arts and the Naseer Bunda Hockey Stadium, where they were briefed about preparations for an SCO hockey tournament scheduled for November 20 to December 2. The significance of the Islamabad meeting, however, goes beyond the routine business of the organisation. Pakistan is due to host the SCO Council of Heads of State summit in August 2027, bringing the question of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's participation into focus. India has not yet announced whether Modi will travel to Islamabad. The Indian government has previously said that a decision on his participation and the level of representation would be taken at the appropriate time. For now, the presence of India's senior SCO official in Islamabad and the unusually cordial public interaction with Pakistan's foreign minister offers a reminder that even amid intense bilateral tensions, the two countries continue to engage within multilateral forums. Whether that institutional engagement eventually creates space for a higher-level political interaction remains an open question. For Pakistan, the SCO summit in 2027 could provide precisely such a moment, with all eyes likely to be on whether Modi chooses to travel to Islamabad.