ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — Pakistan will take part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s first Civilisational Dialogue Forum in New Delhi next week, with Federal Minister for Climate Change Musadik Malik nominated to lead the delegation, the Foreign Office said on Saturday.
The three-day forum runs from November 20 to 22. The Foreign Office spokesperson said Pakistan remained committed to dialogue through the SCO and to cooperation based on mutual respect, and that the country wanted to strengthen people-to-people links through the organisation.
India had invited Pakistan’s Minister for National Heritage and Culture, Aurangzeb Khan Khichi, to the event. Islamabad has instead put forward Malik, who has been representing Pakistan at the COP31 climate talks in Antalya (read more).
On Friday, the Foreign Office spokesperson, Sajjad Haider Khan, had described participation as “a political decision”, saying all stakeholders would be consulted before an announcement was made, “hopefully by Monday, as we don’t have much time left”. The decision came two days earlier than that.
A forum on shared heritage
The Civilisational Dialogue Forum is a new SCO initiative focused on cultural exchange, shared history, and people-to-people contacts across the bloc. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed it at the SCO summit in Tianjin, China, in September 2025, and all member states, including Pakistan, agreed to it.
The opening session is expected at Purana Qila, the 16th-century fort in the Indian capital, on November 20, with Modi due to attend. Sessions on November 21 and 22 will be organised around four themes, among them civilisational and cultural expression, art and architecture, and language, literature, and manuscripts.
India has sent invitations to 25 countries, covering all 10 SCO members as well as the organisation’s observers and dialogue partners. India’s culture minister, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, said on Friday that 15 had confirmed, including China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bahrain, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Sri Lanka.
Shekhawat said he was hopeful Pakistan would attend. Cultural dialogue might not resolve every dispute, he said, but it could help build trust and start conversations between countries.
Multilateral, not bilateral
Pakistan and India have kept their participation in SCO meetings separate from their bilateral disputes, and no bilateral meetings between the two have taken place on the sidelines of these engagements.
An Indian delegation led by India’s SCO national coordinator, Alok Dimri, visited Islamabad from September 28 to 30 for a meeting of the SCO Council of National Coordinators. It was the first Indian delegation-level visit to Islamabad since the military clashes between the two countries in May 2025. The last time a senior Pakistani minister travelled to India for an SCO meeting was in May 2023, when then foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari attended the bloc’s foreign ministers’ meeting in Goa.
Pakistan holds the chair of the SCO Council of Heads of State and is preparing to host the bloc’s summit in 2027 (read more). Lahore has been named the SCO’s Tourism and Cultural Capital for 2026–27.
