India will host the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's (SCO) first Civilisational Dialogue Forum in New Delhi from November 20 to 22, with Pakistan's Minister for National Heritage and Culture, Aurangzeb Khan Khichi, among those invited to attend, diplomatic sources said on Tuesday, October 27.

Source: IANS via HiIndia

The Hindu reported the same invitation on October 27, citing officials, and Pakistan's Samaa TV has also reported that Islamabad received the invitation. Both the IANS and Hindu reports rest on unnamed diplomatic sources, and no formal statement from India's Ministry of External Affairs or Ministry of Culture announcing the invitation was cited in either report.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to inaugurate the three-day forum, which will bring together representatives from more than 25 countries at Purana Quila, the historic 16th-century fort in the national capital. The Ministry of Culture is partnering with the Ministry of External Affairs to organise the event, IANS reported.

Nov 20–22, 2026Forum dates in New Delhi
10SCO member states whose culture ministers are invited
25+Countries expected to be represented
2023Year of the last Pakistani ministerial visit to India

First Pakistani minister in India since Goa 2023, if he comes

Pakistan has yet to confirm who will represent it at the forum, the reports said. If Minister Khichi attends, it would mark the first visit by a Pakistani minister to India since the SCO foreign ministers' meeting in Goa in 2023, which was attended by then foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, and the first since the four-day India-Pakistan conflict of May 2025, The Hindu reported.

Culture ministers from all 10 SCO member states, including Russia, China, Iran and Belarus, have been invited, along with representatives from observer and dialogue partner countries. The gathering is expected to feature discussions on civilisational linkages, cultural diplomacy and collaborative initiatives in heritage, education and traditional knowledge systems.

The initiative was proposed by Prime Minister Modi at the SCO leaders' summit in Tianjin in 2025 and was subsequently adopted by the grouping. Despite strained bilateral relations, India has continued to engage with Pakistan within the SCO framework: in September 2026, India sent its SCO National Coordinator Alok Dimri to Islamabad for a meeting ahead of Pakistan's presidency of the grouping and the planned SCO leaders' summit scheduled for August 2027, IANS reported.

Why it is being watched

A Pakistani minister in Delhi would be a first since the May 2025 fighting, even though both sides frame SCO contact as multilateral business, not a bilateral thaw. Pakistan's confirmation — and who it sends — is still awaited.