- Test of Imran’s diplomacy
Prime Minister Imran Khan is leading the nation’s contingent to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Bishkek had earlier been the site of the SCO Foreign Ministers’ meeting, where the meeting of Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi with his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj had been the first point of contact between the two countries after the latter’s election. Now Mr Qureshi’s principal, Mr Khan, has an opportunity to make contact with Ms Swaraj’s, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, so far Indian officialdom has been quite emphatic that no meeting is planned. This means that the summit has suddenly become a test of Mr Khan’s diplomatic skills.
So far, he has not really shown that much of a taste for summiteering, in which it is often the sideline meetings which are more important than the actual summit itself. Such summits provide an opportunity to meet other world leaders. Summits at which the heads of government of both India and Pakistan were present were used to provide leaders a neutral space to meet, and perhaps make a breakthrough in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of a bilateral summit. Though signals have been negative, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood has been in New Delhi, where he offered Eid prayers. He has the excuse that Delhi was his previous posting, and his children are still completing their academic years there, his presence in the Indian capital at this juncture, cannot have been left unexploited.
It remains to be seen how cleverly the Pakistani delegation, and in particular its leader, manoeuvres, and so uses its presence that Pakistan can further its aims and interests in a way that is consistent with national dignity. It should be seen clearly that once again, India has made the relationship about talks, in the sense that Pakistan is set haring off over whether any meeting takes place at all, and does not spare any thought as to what the content of any talks might be. Mr Khan had predicted that Mr Modi’s re-election would provide an opportunity for the two countries to be more serious about making peace. Now that he is going to Bishkek, he will be able to seek the proof of the pudding, which is in the eating.
