SCO Secy General to visit Pak to invite PM Sharif for bloc's annual summit

Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Secretary-General Ambassador Zhang Ming is set to visit Pakistan during which he will invite Prime Minister Sharif to participate in the bloc's annual summit

Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Secretary-General Ambassador Zhang Ming is set to visit Pakistan during which he will invite Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to participate in the bloc's annual summit to be held in Uzbekistan on September 15-16, according to a media report on Friday.

The SCO secretary general will head a delegation of top officials from the SCO Secretariat based in Beijing during the three-day visit, The News International newspaper reported.

Commenting on the visit, the Foreign Office said: The visit of the SCO Secretary-General will provide an opportunity for Pakistan to engage with the SCO Secretariat while highlighting its perspective and priorities for making SCO mechanisms more effective in advancing shared regional security and economic goals.

Zhang will hold meetings with the foreign minister and ministers of Commerce, Climate Change, Information Technology and Maritime Affairs. He will also speak at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) soon after his arrival.

He will invite Prime Minister Sharif to participate in the SCO annual summit in Samarkand.

The report also speculated about a possible 'chance meeting' between Prime Minister Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.

The SCO, seen as a counterweight to NATO, is an eight-member economic and security bloc and has emerged as one of the largest transregional international organisations.

India and Pakistan became its permanent members in 2017.

The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.