NEW DELHI: India on Thursday dismissed reports that external affairs minister S Jaishankar discussed the resumption of cricket ties with Pakistani leaders during his visit to Islamabad for a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meet, saying he only exchanged pleasantries in an informal setting.
Reports had suggested the resumption of cricket ties figured in a purported conversation on Tuesday between Jaishankar and his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar and interior minister Mohsin Naqvi, who also heads the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). These reports claimed a beginning could be made through the Champions Trophy to be hosted by Pakistan in February-March 2025.
“Whether any conversation regarding cricket happened or not, I would say nothing of that sort happened,” external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a regular media briefing while responding to a question. “And the reports that you saw were not accurate.”
Jaiswal noted the external affairs minister had made it clear that his visit was solely for the meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of Government, and the only bilateral meeting Jaishankar had while in Islamabad was with Mongolia’s Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai.
“Other than that, there were some pleasantries which were exchanged on the sidelines of the [SCO] meeting, especially during lunch and dinner. That is all that we have to say about his visit in relation to [interactions with the Pakistani side],” he said.
Jaiswal made it clear that Jaishankar had no “pull aside meeting” while in Islamabad, as had been suggested by some reports.
People familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity that Jaishankar, the first Indian foreign minister to travel to Pakistan in nine years, had briefly interacted with Ishaq Dar twice – at a dinner hosted for the visiting SCO leaders by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the Prime Minister’s House on Tuesday night, and at a lunch on Wednesday afternoon.
“On Tuesday night, almost the whole Pakistani cabinet was at the dinner, including the interior minister who heads the PCB. But there were no serious discussions,” one of the people cited above said.
The people said too much was made by the Pakistani media about arrangements made by the Pakistani side for Jaishankar and Dar to sit side-by-side at Wednesday’s lunch. “It is for the Pakistani protocol division to decide the sitting arrangements but there were no substantial discussions,” the person cited above said.
However, the people noted that there were no rancorous elements in the speech by the Pakistani premier at the SCO meeting, unlike speeches at the recent UN General Assembly, and the overall atmosphere was better than that at last year’s SCO foreign ministers’ meeting in Goa.
“Even when terrorism was raised, it was in the context of the SCO Charter, which calls for combating terrorism, separatism and extremism. Even the Chinese premier’s speech referred to the need to fight these three challenges,” the person said.
