- India has invited all 10 SCO member states, including Pakistan, to the first Civilisational Dialogue Forum in New Delhi on November 20-22, 2026.
- Pakistan’s Minister for National Heritage and Culture, Aurangzeb Khan Khichi, has been invited; Islamabad has acknowledged the invitation but has not confirmed attendance.
- Indian officials say the invitation reflects India’s responsibilities as host and should not be read as a change in its bilateral position towards Pakistan.
India has invited Pakistan to attend the first-ever Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Civilisational Dialogue Forum in New Delhi, in what is the first invitation of its kind since Operation Sindoor. The three-day forum will be held from November 20 to 22, 2026, at the historic 16th-century Purana Qila in the national capital.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs confirmed on Wednesday, October 28, that all 10 SCO member states have been invited, along with dialogue partners and one observer. The confirmation came at the ministry’s regular media briefing in New Delhi, where spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the invitations had gone out in line with established practice for an SCO event hosted by India.
What the invitation covers
Diplomatic sources have confirmed that Pakistan’s Minister for National Heritage and Culture, Aurangzeb Khan Khichi, has been invited to the forum. Pakistan has acknowledged receiving the invitation, but has not officially confirmed whether Khichi will travel to New Delhi or whether Islamabad will send another representative.
If Khichi does attend, it would be the first visit by a senior Pakistani minister to India since then Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari attended the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Goa in May 2023. It would also be the first invitation to a senior Pakistani minister since Operation Sindoor, launched by Indian armed forces in May 2025 after the Pahalgam terror attack.
The forum is intended to focus on civilisational links and cultural cooperation among SCO members. According to the organisers, discussions will cover shared heritage, cultural diplomacy, education and traditional knowledge systems, with representatives from more than 25 countries expected to take part.
The invitation reflects India’s responsibilities as the host of an SCO event and should not be interpreted as a change in its bilateral position towards Pakistan.
Why India says this is not a bilateral shift
Indian officials have been careful to frame the invitation in multilateral terms. They have said it is part of the country’s responsibilities as the host of an SCO event and should not be interpreted as a change in its bilateral position towards Pakistan. The event, they stressed, should be viewed separately from India’s concerns over cross-border terrorism.
That framing matters because relations between the two countries have been frozen for years and deteriorated further after Operation Sindoor, which targeted terror infrastructure across the border and was followed by a four-day military confrontation. Against that backdrop, even a cultural invitation carries political weight, and New Delhi has moved quickly to define what it does and does not mean.
The distinction between a multilateral obligation and a bilateral opening is one India has used before in SCO settings. The organisation’s members continue to meet on shared platforms even when bilateral ties are strained, and the forum in New Delhi is being presented in that same spirit: a gathering of civilisations, not a negotiation between two capitals.
How the forum came about
The Civilisational Dialogue Forum was proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the SCO Leaders’ Summit held in Tianjin in 2025, and the organisation subsequently accepted the proposal. Prime Minister Modi is expected to inaugurate the three-day forum in New Delhi.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh announced the forum at the SCO Council of Heads of Government meeting in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on October 20, saying the SCO’s 25-year journey offered an opportunity for member states to review collective achievements and discuss the organisation’s future direction. During his address, Singh also called for a firm and consistent approach to terrorism, saying there should be no double standards in dealing with the threat.
The forum is being organised jointly by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of External Affairs. The choice of Purana Qila as the venue is seen as an effort to showcase India’s historical and civilisational heritage to delegates from across the SCO region.
Who is in the SCO
The SCO currently comprises 10 member states: Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India became a full member of the organisation in 2017. The grouping also has Afghanistan and Mongolia as observer states and 15 dialogue partners.
Pakistan formally assumed the rotating chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of State for the 2026-2027 term on September 1, 2026, taking over from Kyrgyzstan following the SCO summit in Bishkek. That chairmanship makes Pakistan’s presence — or absence — at the New Delhi forum a closely watched detail in the weeks ahead.
- The forum runs November 20-22, 2026, at Purana Qila in New Delhi.
- All 10 SCO members, dialogue partners and one observer have been invited.
- Pakistan’s heritage minister Aurangzeb Khan Khichi is the named invitee; attendance is unconfirmed.
- India says the invitation is a host’s multilateral responsibility, not a bilateral policy change.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed the forum at the 2025 Tianjin summit and is expected to inaugurate it.
What happens in Pakistan in the meantime
The invitation arrives at a difficult moment for ordinary people in Pakistan, where cooking-gas prices have surged after the closure of border crossings with Iran, and where the central bank has raised its policy rate to 12 percent as it battles inflation. Those domestic pressures do not decide whether Islamabad accepts a cultural invitation, but they form the backdrop against which any decision will be read at home.
For the forum itself, the practical questions are simpler: who attends, what cultural and heritage initiatives are agreed, and whether a shared civilisational conversation can proceed even while harder political questions remain unresolved. The organisers have set the agenda firmly on culture, heritage and education, and that focus may be what allows the gathering to go ahead regardless of the wider diplomatic freeze.
What to Watch Next
The next signal will be Pakistan’s formal response: whether Aurangzeb Khan Khichi accepts the invitation, whether Islamabad sends another representative, or whether it stays away. After that, attention will turn to the forum itself on November 20-22, to what Prime Minister Modi says at the inauguration, and to whether the cultural discussions produce any shared heritage or education initiatives among the SCO members. What the forum will not do, on India’s own framing, is change the bilateral position between India and Pakistan — that question remains separate from the gathering at Purana Qila.