SOME circles were opposed to the visit of the Foreign Minister to Goa, India to attend the moot of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) but Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s bilateral meetings with the heads of other participating countries have proved the decision right not to miss the opportunity of having fruitful engagements with the member countries. He had a very productive meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the SCO moot with the two leaders assuring each other of working closely to further deepen cooperation between their countries in the areas of food security, energy and people-to-people contact. The FM also had meetings with other leaders including SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming who appreciated Pakistan’s constructive contributions towards strengthening regular cooperation, connectivity, peace and prosperity under the framework of the organization.
Pakistan is facing numerous challenges on the foreign policy front and with this in view it should avail opportunities to put across its point of view before the world community. No doubt, Pakistan has serious issues with India but those should not prevent the country from participation in activities of an organization that has lofty ideals of strengthening mutual confidence and good-neighbourly relations; promoting effective cooperation in politics, trade and economy, science and technology, culture as well as education, energy, transportation, tourism, environmental protection and other fields; making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region, moving towards the establishment of a new, democratic, just and rational political and economic international order. In this backdrop, one can only express sorrow over sordid attempts being made to create controversies about the visit for the sake of petty domestic politics as is evident from remarks made by some leaders of PTI like Shirin Mazari and Fawad Chaudhry who claimed Bilawal has gone to India to show loyalty to ‘Bajwa plan of appeasing the US on Israel and India’. Their views were also in conflict with the professional remarks made by former Foreign Minister and PTI’s central leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi who stated that the SCO was an important forum which Pakistan should make use of. Qureshi went to the extent of suggesting that it might be useful if there was a meeting on the sidelines of the conclave to examine Pakistan-India ties. Those pouring scorn on the visit, which is the first of a Pakistani foreign minister to India in about a decade, have myopic thinking as the visit is not a bilateral one. The SCO is an eight-member political and security bloc that also includes Russia and China and Pakistan cannot allow India to isolate it. In fact, as pointed out by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan’s decision to attend the SCO meet reflected the country’s commitment to the organization’s charter and multilateralism, adding that we are all for win-win understandings based on connectivity, trade and mutually advantageous cooperation. The Islamabad-based Institute of Strategic Studies (ISS) has rightly described the decision to attend the conference as a ‘prudent diplomatic choice’, reflecting Pakistan’s long-term vision — which is cognizant of the evolving geopolitical realities ushering the world into a new era of alignments and realignments.
