PM Shehbaz to meet Xi in Samarkand

Web Desk (LTN NEWS): Later this week, Pakistan’s PM Shehbaz Sharif will meet with China’s President Xi Xinping. This will be their first face-to-face meeting since Pakistan’s government changed in April.

PM Shehbaz and President Xi will meet on September 15 and 16 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

A diplomatic source told on Sunday, “Yes, President Xi and PM Shehbaz will meet on the sidelines of the SCO summit.”

In addition to PM Shehbaz and President Xi Jinping, other world leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi are also expected to be there.

PM Shehbaz will speak at the SCO summit, but the focus will also be on his one-on-one meetings, such as the one he will have with the Chinese president outside of the summit. Since becoming PM, he hasn’t met President Xi yet.

Read PM Shehbaz, UNSG inspects flood damage in Usta Muhammad

PM Shehbaz had planned to go to Beijing when he was first elected PM five months ago. However, he couldn’t go because he couldn’t set up a meeting with President Xi.

Even though no official reason was given, sources said that President Xi couldn’t meet with PM Shehbaz because of strict Covid-19 rules. But now, the leader of China is going to Samarkand. This is his first trip outside of China in more than two years.

Sources say that both sides will look at their relationship with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as a focal point (CPEC). But the recent floods, which were caused by record monsoon rains, will also be a big part of the agenda.

The amount of damage has made Pakistan’s already weak economy even worse off. During his recent trip to Pakistan, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the floods had cost the country $30 billion and more.

The Head of the UN asked the rest of the world to help Pakistan a lot because it was paying for something that others had done. Pakistan will definitely ask China for help to rebuild and fix up the areas that were damaged by the floods.

At Samarkand, PM is also likely to meet with other SCO leaders on a one-on-one basis. He will meet almost all leaders, except for a few, the source said, suggesting that he will also meet with President Putin.

If PM Shehbaz and Putin do meet, it will get a lot of attention because former PM Imran Khan thinks that one of the reasons he was removed from power in a supposedly US-backed plot was because he wanted to get closer to Moscow.

At the next summit, India will take over as head of the SCO. Some people think that PM Modi and PM Shehbaz might pay each other a visit, but sources have said that this won’t happen

Even though there was some hope for a thaw when Pakistan’s government changed, there have been no signs of progress on the bilateral front between Pakistan and India.

In a statement released by the Indian government on Sunday, it was also not clear if PM Modi would have one-on-one talks with Shehbaz, Putin, or Xi. Beijing hasn’t said where Xi plans to go yet, but Moscow has confirmed that Putin met with his Chinese counterpart.