Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday called upon India to hold talks with Pakistan for the sake of regional peace after the Indian general election. Talking to the state-run TV, he said war always brought destruction and it could not be considered an option, especially when both the countries were nuclear powers. “Kashmir is burning as India is trying to suppress the voice of Kashmiris through military presence and its black laws. The voice of Kashmiris cannot be suppressed in this modern era of electronic media and internet,” he said. The minister noted that the European Commission and the United Nations had categorically stated that Kashmiris were fighting for their right of self-determination. He said that Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav had confessed that he was involved in subversive activities in Pakistan. “India wanted his release but he would be tried according to Pakistan’s laws.” Later, Qureshi departed for Kyrgyzstan to represent Islamabad at the Shanghai Cooperation Operation (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. The two-day conference will be attended by Foreign Ministry officials of SCO member states to approve resolutions to be adopted by the council of heads of states at the SCO meeting scheduled to be held in June. Qureshi will also present comments at the plenary session. He will also hold bilateral talks with participating foreign ministers and the secretary general of the SCO. Pakistan, along with India, became a full SCO member in June 2017. The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In March, a roundtable session on the “Shanghai Cooperation Organisation; Future Prospects and Regional Connectivity” was organised by the Center for Global and Strategic Studies (CGSS). In the session, speakers stressed that the Eurasian political, economic and security alliance was a pivotal organisation which promoted closer ties while Pakistan had a lot to offer to its member states. The roundtable saw the participation of heads of think tanks from SCO member and observer states including the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Centre for SCO Study Secretary-General Professor Sun Zhuangzhi, Moscow State Institute of International Relations’ Dr Leonid Gusev, Uzbekistan Institute for Strategic and Regional Studies (ISRS) chief Bakhtiyor Mustafayev, Kyrgystan National Institute for Strategic Studies Adviser to Director Seitzhan Apyshev, Belarusian State University Academic Affairs Unit’s Professor Elena Dostanko and Institute of Political and International Studies (IPIS)- Iran Senior Research Fellow Seyed Majid Ghafelehbashi. The agenda of the discussion was the promotion of regional connectivity in terms of cooperation in trade, commerce and development initiatives, promotion of art and culture amongst the SCO members, enhancement of tourism, fostering people-to-people contacts among member countries and seeing Pakistan as a success model in the fight against terrorism.