Pakistan’s foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari is on a rare visit to India. After arriving in one of India’s coastal states, Goa, which is hosting the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers’ meeting, he has met Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of this summit where both leaders have given assurances of deepening cooperation in the areas of energy and food security.

Meeting Lavrov must have been a great opportunity for young Bilawal to expand his horizons in the world of global diplomacy because Russian foreign minister is his country’s longest-serving minister since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.

With the benefit of hindsight, I must say that it is quite likely that Lavrov will be trying to play the role of a bridge or a mediator between arch rivals Pakistan and India in a discreet manner. It was in August 2019 that Russia offered to help mediate between India and Pakistan to try to calm tensions between two nuclear arch rivals.

Two years later, he visited both India and Pakistan, showcasing Moscow’s growing clout in South Asia. What is more interesting to note is the fact that Russia has already reached out to both China and India to help them defuse border tensions.

Hina Siddiqui (Karachi)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023