Jaishankar greets Pakistan foreign minister Bhutto-Zardari at SCO meet in Goa; talks tough on terror later

Amid speculation that the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan would meet and speak at the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) foreign ministers' meeting in India's western state of Goa which kicked off on Thursday (4), India's external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar welcomed his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari at the conclave on Friday (5).

Visuals showed the two diplomats exchanging greetings with folded hands before posing for photographs. Jaishankar then politely directed Bhutto-Zardari towards the venue.

Minutes later, Jaishankar made a strong statement on the "menace of terrorism" including cross-border terrorism. Bhutto-Zardari, who became the first senior Pakistani leader to visit Pakistan in almost a decade, used his address to the foreign ministers' meeting on Friday (5) to urge the member states of the SCO to avoid using terrorism as a diplomatic tool, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported.

The Pakistani diplomat's visit to India to take part in the SCO meeting takes place amid strained relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbouring nations due to a host of factors, including cross-border terrorism and Jammu and Kashmir.

On Thursday, Bhutto-Zardari was received at the airport in Goa by JP Singh, joint secretary heading the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran division at the external affairs ministry.

The Pakistani foreign minister said after reaching the coastal state, an internationally acclaimed tourist destination, that he was happy to visit the venue for taking part in the SCO meeting and hoped that it was successfull.

Jaishankar spoke with his Chinese and Russian counterparts on the sidelines of the big meeting on Thursday.

The SCO includes, besides India, Pakistan, China and Russia, the four central Asian states of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.