An Indian Delegation Is in Islamabad for the First Time in Two Years

An Indian delegation led by national coordinator Alok Amitabh Dimri arrived in Islamabad on September 28 for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's Council of National Coordinators — the first time an Indian delegation has visited Pakistan in two years, according to Pakistani and Indian media covering the arrival.

What the meeting actually is

The Council of National Coordinators is the SCO's working-level coordination body, distinct from summits of heads of state or foreign ministers. Pakistan is hosting this session, running September 28-30, as the first substantive gathering of its 2026-27 chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of State — a rotating role Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif formally took on at the Bishkek summit earlier this month. We covered Pakistan's chairmanship and the meeting's agenda in more detail separately. National coordinators from the bloc's member states, along with SCO Secretariat representatives, are reviewing the programme of activities under Pakistan's chairmanship and preparations for the events leading up to the 2027 heads-of-state summit Pakistan will host.

Why the Indian presence stands out

What makes this session notable is not the agenda but the attendee list. India and Pakistan have had no substantive bilateral engagement for an extended period, and Islamabad has not hosted a visiting Indian delegation in two years. That the visit is happening at all reflects a pattern that has held even through the coldest bilateral periods: both countries keep showing up to SCO-linked meetings on each other's soil, treating multilateral obligations as separate from the state of the bilateral relationship. India sent its foreign minister to an SCO meeting in Islamabad in 2023 under a similar logic, and Pakistan has reciprocated at Indian-hosted SCO events in the past.

The backdrop this visit doesn't erase

The timing puts the visit directly alongside unresolved friction. Days earlier, India used its right of reply at the UN General Assembly to reject Shehbaz Sharif's remarks on Kashmir and the Indus Waters Treaty and to warn of "consequences" over what it called Pakistan-backed cross-border terrorism. We covered that exchange in full. Separately, a naval collision between Indian and Pakistani vessels has added to an already tense maritime picture this month. None of that appears to have affected India's decision to send Dimri to Islamabad — a sign of how narrowly the two governments are compartmentalising SCO business from everything else on the bilateral ledger.

What to watch

The coordinators' meeting itself is not expected to produce bilateral outcomes — it is a working session on SCO scheduling and Pakistan's chairmanship agenda, not a platform for India-Pakistan talks. The more relevant test is whether this three-day visit is followed by any direct contact between Indian and Pakistani officials on the sidelines, which neither side has signalled, or whether it remains, as both governments appear to intend, a purely multilateral formality.

Build Better Pakistan's Foreign Desk is following the SCO coordinators' meeting through its September 30 close and will update on any bilateral developments that emerge alongside it.