Pakistan foreign minister says 'happy' on rare visit to India

Pakistan's foreign minister arrived in India on 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".

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.

S. Jaishankar, India's foreign minister, met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov ahead of Friday's meeting to discuss ties and "current global and regional agenda topics", a statement from Moscow said.

India's security ties with Russia have put it in an awkward diplomatic position following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Jaishankar also sat down with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Thursday, a week after the defence ministers of both nations met in New Delhi to discuss military deployments on their disputed Himalayan frontier.

"Focus remains on resolving outstanding issues and ensuring peace and tranquillity in the border areas," Jaishankar tweeted after the meeting.

Agence France-Presse