Days after India-Pakistan tensions spilled over into a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi are expected to meet via a video conference at the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARc: meeting on September 24. "All member countries have confirmed participation in the meeting, to be chaired by Pradeep Kumar Gyawali, [1] of Nepal. The respective Foreign Ministers will take part," sources familiar with preparations for the meeting told The Hindu, referring to the eight members of SAARC, including [2], Bangladesh, [3], India, [4], Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. A senior Indian official also confirmed that Mr. Jaishankar will attend despite the incident at the SCO virtual meeting of National Security Advisors on Tuesday. During that meeting, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval stormed out after he saw that the Pakistan Special Advisor on National Security Moeed Yusuf had used a map of Pakistan that claimed Indian Territory.
"This was in blatant disregard to the advisory by the host [5] against it and in violation of the norms of the meeting. After consultation with the host, the Indian side left the meeting in protest at that juncture," the MEA had said about the incident. When asked, the sources said that no specific guidelines on background or maps have been issued by the SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu that is also the Chair of the SAARC at present, but they hope it would go "smoothly". A meeting of SAARC Finance Ministers, where an Additional Secretary represented India instead of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, and Pakistan was represented by its Special Advisor on Finance, took place on Wednesday without incident.
Source: Excerpt taken from The Hindu, written by Suhasini Haider. (Dated 17 th September, 2020.)