PM Imran, India’s Modi likely to come face-to-face at SCO summit: report

PM Imran Khan with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photo: Facebook

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Imran Khan and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are likely to come to face-to-face at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit scheduled to be held later this year in India, reported The News.

SCO Secretary General Vladimir Norov announced on Monday that India would be hosting the summit this year. The event will bring together leaders from India, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. 

Also read: PM Imran slams 'fascist Modi regime' for state terrorism

Separately, Russia will host a meeting of the heads of state of SCO countries in July, but “this year for the first time India is chairing one of the main SCO bodies, the council of heads of government and prime ministers of the organisation’s member states," Norov said on Monday.

“The member states have highly appreciated India’s willingness to host the meeting of prime ministers in autumn 2020," he added. India and Pakistan joined the SCO as full members in 2017. 

Also read: Modi government is at war with Muslims, says President Arif Alvi

It is not immediately clear whether Pakistan will accept the Indian invite to the meeting, or whether the SCO summit would play a part in the start of thaw in the relations of the two countries who have been at loggerheads since India scrapped the special status of occupied Kashmir on August 5, 2019.  

Earlier this month, PM Imran severely criticised India's move occupied Kashmir, slamming the Modi-led government by saying that India’s fascist regime was engaging in violence while the world remained silent.

“How long will the world remain silent while the fascist extremist Modi regime indulges in state terrorism?” he said.

PM Imran urges UNSC, world to take action on IoK situation

In his address to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in September last year, PM Imran had heavily criticised Modi and his party’s ultra-nationalist hardline style of governance.

The prime minister had said that if the world failed to intervene then the two-nuclear armed nations will come at the brink of war.

In a separate address to the Asia Society in New York, the prime minister had said his government had tried several times to negotiate with Bharatiya Janata Party government. 

"The dialogue process with India cannot be resumed unless curfew is lifted from the valley," he had said.