Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari says ‘happy’ on rare visit to India

Benaulim: Pakistan’s foreign minister arrived in India Thursday to take part in an international conference, the first official visit by a senior Pakistani official to the country’s eastern neighbour since 2016.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is in the Indian coastal resort state of Goa for a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting of foreign ministers, along with counterparts from China and Russia.

“I am very happy that today I have arrived here leading the delegation of Pakistan,” he told reporters.

Bhutto gave no indication whether he would hold one-on-one talks with his opposite number in India, but said he hoped the SCO meeting would be “very successful”.

Pakistan suspended trade and diplomatic ties with India in 2019, when New Delhi imposed direct rule on Kashmir.

Both countries withdrew their top diplomats and several consular staff were expelled or withdrawn in tit-for-tat measures.

That development came after a military standoff earlier - also centred over Kashmir.

The most recent visit to India by a high-ranking Pakistan diplomat was in 2016, when Sartaj Aziz - then the senior foreign affairs adviser to the prime minister - travelled there.

India currently holds the rotating presidency of the SCO, a forum established in 2001 that also includes several Central Asian states, rivalling Western institutions.