Pakistan has received an invitation from India to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Civilisational Dialogue Forum in New Delhi from 20 to 22 November 2026, the Foreign Office confirmed on Friday. Islamabad has not yet decided whether it will attend, and the leadership will decide after consultations.
Foreign Office spokesperson Sajjad Haider Khan confirmed the invitation at his weekly media briefing in Islamabad on Friday, 6 November. He said Pakistan believed in constructive engagement and dialogue at regional and international forums, and that participation in the SCO Civilisational Dialogue Forum would be decided once consultations and established procedures were complete.
The invitation has drawn wide attention as the first to a senior Pakistani minister since the military confrontation between the two countries in May 2025, according to reports. Pakistan’s National Heritage and Culture Minister Aurangzeb Khan Khichi is understood to have been invited to attend the forum.
What India has invited Pakistan to
The SCO Civilisational Dialogue Forum is the first edition of a new SCO platform for cultural engagement and people-to-people contact, organised jointly by India’s Ministry of Culture and its Ministry of External Affairs.
India formally invited all ten SCO member states on 28 October. The initiative was proposed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the SCO leaders’ summit in Tianjin in 2025, and announced by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at the SCO Council of Heads of Government meeting in Dushanbe on 20 October.
The three-day event in New Delhi will bring together representatives of the SCO’s ten member countries to discuss civilisational dialogue, shared heritage and cultural ties across Eurasia. Officials cited in Indian media have stressed that the invitation is part of the multilateral SCO framework and should not be read as a change in India’s position on bilateral issues.
Why the invitation matters
The invitation comes around eighteen months after the April 2025 Pahalgam attack and the military confrontation that followed in May 2025, events that have shaped relations between the two neighbours ever since. Since then, high-level contact has remained limited, which is why the invitation to a Pakistani minister has been described in reports as the first formal outreach of its kind since that confrontation.
The last visit by a Pakistani foreign minister to India was in May 2023, when Bilawal Bhutto Zardari travelled to Goa for an SCO foreign ministers’ meeting. In the other direction, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar visited Pakistan in October 2024 — the first visit by an Indian foreign minister to Pakistan in nine years.
Pakistan currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of State for 2026–27, assumed on 1 September after the Bishkek summit — adding weight to the decision Islamabad must now make.
Who would represent Pakistan
Reports indicate that the invitation has been extended to Pakistan’s Minister for National Heritage and Culture, Aurangzeb Khan Khichi. If he attends, it would be one of the highest-level Pakistani visits to India since the 2025 confrontation.
The Foreign Office did not confirm who would represent Pakistan, saying only that the leadership would decide after consultations. For now, attendance remains unconfirmed and no delegation has been announced.
What the Foreign Office said about pilgrims and Kartarpur
The briefing also covered religious tourism. Pakistan issued 9,318 visas to Indian religious pilgrims in 2025, when around 9,000 Sikh pilgrims and 248 Hindu pilgrims visited; another 4,000 visas went to Sikh pilgrims in the first half of 2026, plus 300 to Hindu pilgrims.
Pakistan opened the Kartarpur Corridor in 2019, built for more than 5,000 visitors a day, so pilgrims can visit their shrine and return to India the same day. India suspended movement through the corridor in May 2025; Pakistan says it is ready to welcome pilgrims as soon as India lifts the restrictions.
The spokesperson said Pakistan was looking forward to welcoming Sikh pilgrims for the celebrations marking the 557th birth anniversary of Baba Guru Nanak Dev Ji. He added that Pakistan had not stopped issuing visas to Indian citizens and recognised the deep spiritual significance of religious visits. On a possible visit to Pakistan by Indian Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, the spokesperson said the decision to grant permission rested with the Indian government.
What happens next
Pakistan’s decision on the SCO Civilisational Dialogue Forum is now awaited. The leadership will weigh the invitation after consultations among relevant institutions, and any acceptance would be announced through official channels. The forum begins in New Delhi on 20 November, giving Islamabad just under two weeks to decide.
The spokesperson closed by saying peace in the neighbourhood remained Pakistan’s foremost priority, and that lasting peace could be achieved through political dialogue and diplomacy rather than war.
Sources: The Frontier Post; Shafaqna Pakistan.
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