Pakistan has extended a formal invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting, scheduled for October this year in Islamabad, as reported by Geo News.

While addressing a weekly news briefing, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, said that Pakistan has extended invitations to all heads of government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for the upcoming Council of Heads of Government (CHG) meeting in Islamabad.

Baloch further said that Islamabad has also received some confirmations for the upcoming SCO moot to be hosted by Pakistan on October 15-16, according to Geo News.

The official confirmation regarding Pakistan’s invitations to the heads of the SCO member states came two days after Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that the country would certainly invite PM Modi to the regional summit. Notably, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had earlier denied the media reports suggesting that PM Modi would not attend the upcoming SCO summit in Pakistan.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a permanent intergovernmental international organization established on June 15, 2001 in Shanghai (PRC) by the Republic of Kazakhstan, the People’s Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan. Its predecessor was the mechanism of the Shanghai Five.

Currently, the SCO countries includes nine Member States — the Republic of India, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the People’s Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan, the Republic of Uzbekistan. (ANI)