Reporting snapshot · 1 October 2026. India's Shanghai Cooperation Organisation national coordinator Alok Dimri met Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar in Islamabad on Wednesday, 30 September, the last day of the three-day SCO Council of National Coordinators meeting held under Pakistan's 2026-27 chairmanship. Both governments confirmed the meeting, and a Foreign Office video released the same day showed Dimri warmly shaking Dar's hand and posing for photographs alongside Pakistan's SCO national coordinator, Dr Muhammad Faisal. The Indian envoy called it his first visit to Pakistani soil and said the bloc's programme would continue throughout Pakistan's chairmanship, culminating in the SCO Council of Heads of State summit in Islamabad in 2027. The visit came days after India and Pakistan exchanged sharp rhetoric at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and Pakistan's Foreign Office used the meeting to brief media on the rest of the chairmanship programme. This account draws on the Pakistan Today and Express Tribune read-outs of Dimri's Islamabad visit, plus KhabarWire's prior coverage of the 28 September meeting opening, the 26 September UNGA right-of-reply clash and the 2 September Bishkek SCO summit declaration.
What happened
India’s SCO national coordinator Alok Dimri met Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday, 30 September, the closing day of the SCO Council of National Coordinators meeting in Islamabad under Pakistan’s 2026-27 chairmanship, both governments confirmed. A video shared the same day by Pakistan’s Foreign Office and reported by The Express Tribune showed Dimri warmly shaking Dar’s hand and then standing between Dar and Pakistan’s SCO national coordinator Dr Muhammad Faisal for the standard photo, an unusually cordial visual given the state of bilateral relations.
Dimri described the trip as his first to Pakistani soil and said the SCO programme under Pakistan’s chairmanship would continue throughout the year, culminating in the Council of Heads of State summit in Islamabad in 2027. “For me, this is the first opportunity to come to Pakistani soil, and through the SCO, these programs will continue throughout the year and will culminate with the Islamabad Summit,” Dimri told reporters in Islamabad on Wednesday, Pakistan Today reported. “So, this is an annual rotational ritual of the SCO in which we are participating, and our expectations are that there will be new progress in all the ongoing cooperation verticals of the SCO and that we will move forward.”
Dimri highlighted the SCO’s traditional three cooperation pillars — regional connectivity, trade and transit — and suggested that English might be added as a working language alongside Russian and Chinese under Pakistan’s presidency. “So far, discussions among our member states in the SCO have taken place in Russian and Chinese. Now, perhaps, English may also be introduced under the Pakistani presidency, Pakistan Today reported him saying. He also used his Pakistan Television interview to express interest in visiting Lahore, Faisalabad and Sialkot during future SCO meetings, noting that Lahore had been declared an SCO Cultural City.
The Indian diplomat’s visit marks the highest-profile Indian participation in an SCO meeting hosted by Pakistan since bilateral ties deteriorated sharply after New Delhi revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status in August 2019 and Pakistan downgraded diplomatic relations. India and Pakistan have not had ambassadors in each other’s capitals since then; their respective missions are headed by a charge d’affaires. Within the SCO, however, India has continued to send national-coordinator-level delegations to host meetings in Pakistan, even as it has not committed to higher-level bilateral engagement.
Why the visit matters
The Dimri visit lands on a delicate bilateral moment. On 26 September, India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told the UN General Assembly that “terrorism by Pakistan will have consequences” and accused Islamabad of being a “serial practitioner of terrorism”, an exchange KhabarWire documented the same day. Pakistan strongly rejected the allegations and defended its position on Kashmir and the May 2025 military confrontation. PM Shehbaz Sharif had already used his own UNGA address on 22 September, a speech KhabarWire covered, to insist that any Indian attempt to weaponise Pakistan’s waters would be an “act of war”, a line he repeated in his 25 September remarks.
Against that backdrop, Dimri’s public handshake with Dar and his ready tone about future SCO engagement is a deliberate lowering of temperature. The Express Tribune reported that Dar highlighted Islamabad’s priorities for its SCO chairmanship and the participating national coordinators “reaffirmed their commitment to SCO goals and to advancing the objectives of the Organization through continued engagement and practical cooperation”. The same readout described the meeting as “strikingly cordial” given the state of India-Pakistan ties.
The SCO Council of National Coordinators meeting itself was the first senior-level preparatory meeting under Pakistan’s chairmanship, which began on 1 September after Pakistan took over from Kyrgyzstan at the Bishkek summit earlier that month, a transition KhabarWire documented. Pakistan’s theme for its 2026-27 chairmanship is “Turning Vision into Action: Connectivity, Innovation and Shared Prosperity”. The opening of the National Coordinators meeting on 28 September was a setting for the bloc’s annual calendar; the closing day became the diplomatic focal point because of the Indian envoy’s presence.
What comes next
The immediate question is whether the SCO process can move the bilateral relationship off its current, formally quiet baseline. Pakistan is due to host the SCO Council of Heads of State summit in August 2027, and the Indian envoy’s visit will revive speculation about whether his prime minister will travel to Islamabad. India has not yet announced whether Modi will attend. The Indian government has previously said that a decision on his participation and the level of representation would be taken at the “appropriate time”, The Express Tribune reported.
For Pakistan, the SCO chairmanship offers a year of multilateral events that will require Indian participation at lower levels and embassies where strategic engagement could happen without crossing the no-ambassador line. The bloc’s autumn schedule, which Pakistan’s foreign ministry set out at the close of the National Coordinators meeting, includes the SCO Hockey Tournament in Lahore from 20 November to 2 December. Lahore has been declared an SCO Cultural City and is expected to host at least one ministerial meeting during Pakistan’s chairmanship, increasing the number of expected Indian visits to Pakistani soil.
The dim diplomatic signal from Wednesday will also colour the next round of UNGA side events and the long-running back-channel discussion about resuming bilateral talks. Whether the cordial handshake translates into a wider opening is the open question that runs through Pakistan’s entire SCO year. For now, as both readouts stressed, the two countries continue to engage within multilateral forums even when their bilateral relationship is frozen.
Sources & reporting notes
This is a synthesis of published material, not eyewitness reporting. Sources were reviewed on 1 October 2026. The account of the 30 September–1 October closing of the SCO National Coordinators meeting rests on the Pakistan Today and Express Tribune read-outs of Alok Dimri's Islamabad visit; the framing of the September UNGA right-of-reply clash, Pakistan's chairmanship opening on 28 September, and the Bishkek declaration on 2 September rests on earlier KhabarWire reporting and on the publicly available primary record.
- Pakistan Today — Indian SCO envoy in Islamabad as Pakistan's year-long chairmanship gets under way1 October 2026 · Alok Dimri's first visit to Pakistani soil, his remarks on the year-long SCO chairmanship programme, his proposal on English as a working language, his interest in visiting Lahore, Faisalabad and Sialkot, and the SCO Hockey Tournament set for 20 November–2 December in Lahore.
- The Express Tribune — Islamabad, New Delhi strike cordial SCO note1 October 2026 · Kamran Yousaf's read-out of the SCO meeting's closing day, the Ishaq Dar–Alok Dimri public handshake and the Foreign Office briefing on Pakistan's chairmanship priorities. Includes the Pakistan Television interview in which Dimri describes his first visit and his hopes to visit more Pakistani cities.
- Shanghai Cooperation Organisation — official websitePermanent reference · The official SCO portal listing Pakistan's 2026-27 chairmanship, the calendar of meetings, and the foundational documents for cooperation on security, trade and culture that frame the national coordinators' work.
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