Pakistan on Thursday said it will host the SCO Heads of Government Meeting in October and invite heads of government of all member countries of the grouping.
Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zehra Baloch said at the weekly press briefing that Pakistan, in its capacity as the rotating chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG), will host the SCO Heads of Government meeting in October this year.
When asked whether Pakistan would invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit Pakistan and attend the summit.
Baloch responded, “The chairmanship is with Pakistan, so as the chair we will invite all heads of government of the SCO member states.” He added, “This summit will be in person and we hope that all SCO member states will be represented at the meeting of heads of government in October.”
He said the October summit will be preceded by several rounds of ministerial meetings and senior officials’ meetings, focusing on financial, economic, socio-cultural and humanitarian cooperation among SCO member states.
Baloch also said that Pakistan would not be part of any bloc in international politics as it believed in maintaining good relations with all countries.
She said, “First of all I would like to make it clear that Pakistan has repeatedly stated that we are not part of any bloc. We do not believe in bloc politics. We believe in good relations with all countries based on mutual respect, mutual trust and non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs.”
He said Pakistan categorically rejects the baseless claims made about Pakistan in the recent report on religious freedom released by the US Department of State and, in principle, Pakistan opposes such one-sided reports that comment on the internal affairs of sovereign States.
It states, “We believe that international religious freedom cannot be viewed from the social and legal perspective of any one country.”
It said that one-sided reports assessing human rights situations in other countries are not free from political bias and present an incomplete and distorted picture, and that the methodology followed in preparing these reports and the mandate and expertise of their authors are not transparent.
“We firmly believe that it is the primary responsibility of every state to promote and protect the religious rights and freedom of its citizens,” he said, adding that Pakistani citizens have the right to freedom of religion and belief under the law and as enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan.
He said during Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s visit to Tajikistan this week, the two sides signed the Pakistan-Tajikistan Strategic Partnership Agreement, which will be based on five pillars of bilateral cooperation, including political, trade and investment, energy and connectivity, security and defence, and people-to-people contacts.
This will include structured high-level talks at the leadership and foreign ministers’ levels.
She termed the UN group’s report on Imran Khan as unfair and said, “I would like to emphasise that a report on a particular case is unfair when it lacks objectivity and is based on an incomplete and incorrect understanding of Pakistan’s legal and judicial system.”
The report said that the cases against Khan were politically motivated.
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