India invites Pakistan for SCO civilisational dialogue forum meet next month

India has invited Pakistan to the inaugural meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's (SCO) civilisational dialogue forum, which it will host next month, the TOI reported on Wednesday.

Pakistan's Minister for National Heritage and Culture, Aurungzeb Khan Khichi, has been invited to attend the meeting, according to the report.

The forum aims to strengthen people-to-people ties and cultural understanding among SCO member states.


Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed the dialogue forum during his visit to Tianjin, China, for the SCO summit last year.

The initiative seeks to promote cultural engagement within the Eurasian grouping, which has continued to facilitate high-level exchanges between India and Pakistan despite strained bilateral ties.

The invitation comes as India and Pakistan continue to have little direct engagement.

Their participation in SCO meetings has, however, provided opportunities for senior-level visits, even as both sides have refrained from holding bilateral meetings during such engagements, the report added.

The last Pakistani minister to visit India was Bilawal Bhutto in 2023 for an SCO foreign ministers' meeting. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar travelled to Pakistan the following year for a meeting of SCO heads of government. Neither visit resulted in bilateral talks.

The latest invitation also follows a visit by India's SCO national coordinator, Alok Dimri, to Pakistan for a high-level meeting to finalise the grouping's agenda and preparations for next year's summit in Islamabad.

Pakistan currently holds the SCO presidency and is scheduled to host the heads of state summit next year.

Dimri's visit was the first senior-level engagement between the two countries since the Pahalgam terror attack.