Pakistan, India foreign ministers meeting unlikely during SCO summit

ISLAMABAD: With Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif flying off to Beijing next Tuesday to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, re-alignment in the region is on display as changing security scenarios see new alliances being forged in the region.

While Beijing should provide an opportunity for informal bilateral talks on the sidelines between Pakistan and India with the presence of Indian Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, it is unlikely that the two neighbours will take advantage of this opportunity to hold talks.

Besides regional and international issues, discussions under the SCO’s Regional Counter Terrorism Structure, dealing with terrorism, separatism, extremism will be of added significance, an issue of vital importance to all SCO member states.

However, all eyes are on an expected meeting between Khawaja Asif and his Russian counterpart Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov on the sidelines of the SCO at a time when Moscow has counselled that problems between India and Pakistan should be resolved diplomatically in line with the Simla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration, and Russia would support such a dialogue if requested by both sides. Russia says that one of the reasons that Pakistan’s ‘credibility’ has risen is because of its entering the SCO. Earlier, UN Secretary General had also offered mediation between Pakistan and India, given both sides agree. This very recent regional re-alignment which has seen Pakistan and Russia drawing close with several visits of senior Pakistani ministers and officials to Moscow saw further cooperation towards a strategic partnership, a move welcomed by China but certainly not supported by the US, that also sees bilateral ties between Moscow and New Delhi cooling off as Washington uses India as a strategic partner against China.

Joint military drills and Russia naming an honorary consul to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are certainly signs of warming ties between Islamabad and Moscow. Lately, with US arms deals dwindling, improvement in Pak-Russian defence ties, as supply of defence merchandise continues, Pakistan calls it “a regional recalibration of Pakistan’s foreign and security policy”, as it received recently four MI-35 gunship helicopters. Neither is Russia coy about its reaching out to the land of the Crescent and Star, with Russian Ambassador in India, Nikolay Kudashev, trying to ease the pain of the Indians, and saying that all have to be realistic as far as regional security and stability is concerned, while giving full marks to Pakistan’s ‘credibility’ as it continues to fight the war against extremism and terrorism at a very high cost.

“In my take…after this country (Pakistan) joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, after this country started to take serious measures to curb the financing of terror, the credibility of Pakistan is growing and there is no reason, no sense to deny its wish, its will to be a part of regional and global efforts to fight terror, to search for stability and to enhance economic integration,” he said this week, at an event in Delhi.

Russia, however, says it remains strong on its decades’ old strategic partnership with India.

In the same speech, Kudashev, hinted that as far as finding peace inside Afghanistan was concerned, it was unwise of the US to put pressure on Pakistan which in the end would result in creating more complications.

“The problems of Afghanistan are impossible to resolve without taking on board every neighbouring country,” he said, adding, “There should be a realistic and comprehensive approach to the issues of common interest rather than a geopolitical one. We are open to contacts with every country, especially if it would help to ensure the regional stability, which, on the other hand, also remains largely dependent on constructive relationship between New Delhi and Islamabad.”

It is also the sheer need for survival and after receiving a bloody nose inside Afghanistan while realising its folly of marching its troops in, that Russia sees better relations with Pakistan a necessity, especially in the face of the growing presence of Daesh and the terrorism of the Afghan Taliban.

And what appears to be the almost permanent presence of US troops inside Afghanistan has also seen Moscow reaching out to new allies in the region.

Ambassador Kudashev also pointed out to Russia’s support for reconciliation efforts leading to talks between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban, a move that Pakistan has also always supported. “This is the only way forward for the sake of lasting national reconciliation, and this need for a unified approach towards the Taliban was guiding Russia’s developing relations with Pakistan,” he added.