External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar spent a quiet Wednesday morning in Islamabad doing a morning walk with Indian diplomats and planting a sapling on the premises of the Indian High Commission. Jaishankar is in the Pakistani capital for the SCO Summit, becoming the first External Affairs Minister to visit the neighbouring country in nine years.
Jaishankar shared a picture of him wearing a full-sleeved bottle-green t-shirt and track pants and doing a morning walk with the diplomats of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. “A morning walk together with colleagues of Team @IndiainPakistan in our High Commission campus,” he tweeted.
He also put up a post showing him planting an Arjuna sapling in the presence of Indian diplomats there on the premises of the High Commission. “An Arjuna sapling at @IndiainPakistan premises is another commitment to #Plant4Mother,” he wrote.
Jaishankar is leading India’s delegation at the SCO Summit that will be held at Jinnah Convention Centre today. On Tuesday, the External Affairs Minister met Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during an informal dinner hosted by the latter. Both leaders shook hands and exchanged greetings.
No bilateral talks are scheduled between Jaishankar and his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar on the sidelines of the SCO Summit as ties between the two neighbours remain frosty over cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
On Tuesday, Jaishankar landed at Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi in Pakistan, making him the first Indian foreign minister to visit the country in nine years. The last External Affairs Minister to visit Pakistan was Sushma Swaraj.
Other leaders from SCO member states attending the summit include Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Belarus Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko, Kazakhstan Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Tajik Prime Minister Kohir Rasulzoda, Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov, Kyrgyzstan’s Chairman of Ministers Cabinet Zhaparov Akylbek, and Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref.
India has made it clear to Pakistan earlier that terror and talks cannot go together and that deliberations to resume bilateral ties can only happen in a conducive atmosphere.
