PM Narendra Modi and Imran Khan won't meet at Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit

India has dismissed reports about a structured meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan at the Shanghai cooperation organisation summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan that takes place in the 2nd week of June.

It will be for the first time both leaders will come face-to-face after the former cricketer was sworn-in as the prime minister of the Islamic nation last year. "Report appearing in a section of the media about a possible meeting between Prime Minister Modi and Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan is entirely speculative," said a government source

Khan had called Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi on Sunday to congratulate him on his victory in the Lok sabha elections. During the conversation, no invite was extended to Imran Khan for the oath-taking ceremony that will take place on May 30.

In 2014, Modi had invited all SAARC leaders including the then Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for his swearing-in ceremony, in a major initiative to reach out to the neighbouring countries.

India has not been engaging with Pakistan following the attack on the Air Force base at Pathankot in January of 2016, maintaining that talks and terror cannot go together.

Ties between the two countries are frayed since the Pulwama terror attack on 14th of February, whose responsibility was claimed by Pakistan based United Nations listed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad. India retaliated with air-strikes in Balakot, obliterating a terror training camp. Pakistan has refuted India's claims of air strikes.

(with agency inputs)