Teams led by Shashi Tharoor, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari reaching US, set up for India vs Pak round

An Indian all-party delegation led by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and a Pakistani team headed by former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari are set to be in the US at around the same time this week to muster support for their countries from American lawmakers and political leaders.

The all-party delegation led by Tharoor is headed back to the US after travelling to Guyana, Panama, Colombia and Brazil and is set to arrive in Washington on June 3. The delegation, which includes BJP lawmaker Bhubaneshwar Kalita, Shiv Sena MP Milind Deora and former diplomat Taranjit Singh Sandhu, had begun its engagements with a trip to New York last month.

The nine-member delegation led by Bhutto-Zardari, which includes former foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar, former information minister Sherry Rehman, former defence minister Khurram Dastgir Khan and former foreign secretaries Jalil Abbas Jilani and Tehmina Janjua, is set to visit New York and Washington from June 2, according to a readout from Pakistan’s foreign ministry. This delegation will also travel to London and Brussels.

The Indian delegation began its visit to the US by travelling to New York on May 24 as the US Congress was not in session at the time and American lawmakers were away from Washington over the weekend and the Memorial Day holiday on May 26. On its return to the US, the Indian delegation is expected to engage with members of the Trump administration, members of influential Congressional committees and key American lawmakers in Washington.

While it could not immediately be ascertained whether the Indian and Pakistani delegations will be in the same city at the same time, Tharoor and Bhutto-Zardari are known for their skills in engaging with the media and other interlocutors. While in New York last month, Tharoor said at an interaction with think tanks and the media that India has demonstrated Pakistan will have to pay an increasingly higher price for backing terror attacks against the country since Islamabad has not shown any seriousness about tackling terrorism.

The Pakistan government announced it would send two delegations to North America and Europe and Russia soon after India unveiled plans to send seven all-party delegations to 33 countries around the world. The Indian delegations have briefed political leaders and lawmakers in these countries about the rationale behind India’s decision to launch Operation Sindoor to target terrorist infrastructure in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22 that killed 26 civilians.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said the country’s delegations will project Islamabad’s “perspective on the recent Indian aggression” and its efforts to seek peace with responsibility in the “face of India’s reckless and belligerent actions”. The delegations will also highlight that dialogue and diplomacy should take precedence over conflict and confrontation, the foreign ministry’s readout said.

The delegations will urge the world community to play its role in “promoting a lasting peace in South Asia” and raise the “immediate resumption of the normal functioning of the Indus Waters Treaty”, the readout added.

The suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty was among a raft of punitive diplomatic and economic measures announced by the Indian government a day after the Pahalgam terror attack.

The Pakistan government is sending another delegation led by the special assistant to the prime minister, Tariq Fatemi, to Russia during June 2-4. He is scheduled to meet senior Russian officials and engage with the media and think tanks.

An Indian delegation led by DMK MP Kanimozhi visited Russia during May 23-24 and interacted with members of both houses of Parliament, think tanks and the media to project New Delhi’s united resolve and zero-tolerance approach towards all forms of terrorism. The delegation met deputy foreign minister Andrey Rudenko and stressed that India “will not tolerate any nuclear blackmail”. The two sides agreed to strengthen counter-terrorism measures and eliminate all forms of terror.