New Delhi: On Thursday in Goa, India’s external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, will meet separately with the foreign ministers of Uzbekistan, Qin Gang of China, and Sergey Lavrov of Russia.

“Tomorrow’s bilateral meetings of External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar with SCO Secretary General, Foreign Ministers of Russia, China, and Uzbekistan,” a MEA source told ANI.

It is important to note that both Chinese and Russian ministers are currently in India for the second time this year.

For the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting in March, they were in New Delhi.

On May 4 and 5, the SCO Foreign Ministers’ Meeting will take place in Goa.

China had previously announced that their foreign minister would travel to India to attend the meeting of the SCO foreign ministers.

According to a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, “At the meeting, State Councillor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang will exchange views with other SCO member states’ foreign ministers on the international and regional situation as well as SCO cooperation in various fields, among other topics, to make full preparation for this year’s SCO summit.”

After the conflict in the Galwan Valley, relations between China and India deteriorated. Following the actions of the Chinese Army that resulted in a standoff in May 2020, India and China have held several rounds of military and diplomatic negotiations for disengagement along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

There is no official confirmation of a bilateral between Pakistan’s Bilawal Bhutto and India’s S. Jaishankar.

Bhutto-Zardari will lead the Pakistani delegation to the SCO foreign ministers meeting in Goa, according to the Pakistani Foreign Ministry.

Bhutto-Zardari is attending the SCO Foreign Ministers’ meeting at the invitation of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, according to Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, the spokeswoman for the Pakistan Foreign Office, who made the announcement during a weekly press conference on Thursday.

The spokesperson stated that “our attendance at the meeting reflects Pakistan’s continued commitment to the SCO charter and process as well as the importance that Pakistan accords to the region in its foreign policy priorities.”

According to Business Recorder, Bilawal will be the first foreign minister to visit India in almost 12 years. In 2011, Hina Rabbani Khar, who was then Pakistan’s foreign minister, traveled to India.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was founded in 2001, has as members Russia, India, China, Pakistan, and four nations in central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.