DPM Dar to participate in SCO CFM meeting in China: FO

• SCO huddle to be attended by all FMs of member states: FO.
• CFM focuses on issues of int'l relations, security policies.
• Belarus joins CFM for first time as full SCO member.
  

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar will travel to Tianjin, China, tomorrow for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, being held on 14-16 July 2025.

In a statement, the Foreign Office said that the foreign ministers of all SCO member states, including Pakistan, China, Belarus, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, will participate in the CFM meeting.

The foreign minister of Belarus will also attend the CFM for the first time as a member of the forum.

The CFM is the third highest forum in the SCO format. It focuses on the issues of international relations, as well as foreign and security policies.

The forum also approves the documents, including declarations and statements, etc, that are to be presented for the consideration of the Council of Heads of State (CHS) as well as the decisions to be adopted by the CHS.

The upcoming CHS will take place on August 31 – September 1, 2025, in Tianjin, China.

DPM Dar will also hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts on the sidelines of the CFM meeting.

This will be the second SCO event in which Pakistan and India's top officials would be facing each other amid heightened tensions following an armed conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours in May.

In June, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif had revealed that his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh refused to sign the joint document during a high-level Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) huddle in China after being denied a second turn to speak.

Speaking on Geo News' programme "Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath”, Asif said that his Indian counterpart addressed the event second or third, based on alphabetical order.

Presenting Pakistan’s evidence-based stance at the SCO meeting, the minister said: “I spoke fifth at the event, wherein I mentioned the Jaffar Express attack and [Indian spy] Kulbhushan Jadhav.”

Meanwhile, the Indian defence minister requested the conference chairman — China — to speak again. In view of the tradition, the Chinese defence minister declined India’s request.

Frustrated by the rejection of its request, India declined to sign the joint declaration, which had been agreed upon by all participants except New Delhi, he added.

According to the Indian media, India refused to sign a joint document during the SCO huddle due to it mentioning terrorist activities in Pakistan's Balochistan and lack of reference to the Pahalgam incident — which saw several tourists being killed in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

India blamed Pakistan for the attack but Islamabad rejected the accusation.