Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari arrived in India on Thursday for an international conference in a rare official visit by a senior Pakistani official to the eastern neighbour since 2016.
Zardari is visiting the Indian coastal state of Goa to attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization along with his Chinese and Russian counterparts.
"I am very happy to arrive here at the head of the Pakistani delegation," he told reporters.
Zardari did not hint at the possibility of direct talks with his Indian counterpart but said he hoped the SCO meeting would be "very successful".
The last visit by a senior Pakistani official to India dates back to 2016 when Sartaj Aziz, then as the prime minister's foreign affairs adviser, flew to New Delhi.
Neighbouring India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they were founded following the partition of the Indian peninsula in 3, and relations between the nuclear-armed nations have remained tense in recent years, particularly over the disputed region of Kashmir.
Pakistan suspended trade and diplomatic ties with India in 2019 when New Delhi imposed direct rule over its part of Muslim-majority Kashmir and implemented strict security measures.
The two countries withdrew their top diplomats, while many consular staff were expelled or withdrawn in reciprocal proceedings.
The developments followed a military crisis earlier that year, also centered on Kashmir, that saw-for-tat air strikes and the downing of an Indian fighter jet.
India currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which was founded in 2001 and is a rival political, economic and security organization to Western institutions.
Indian Foreign Minister S. Jashsenkar met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov ahead of the meeting on Friday to discuss relations and "current global and regional agenda topics".
The security relationship between India and Russia has been running for a long time, and New Delhi has been put in a sensitive diplomatic position after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has sought to strike a balance between India's growing security cooperation with Western countries and its dependence on Russia for defence and oil imports.
Jaishankar also met Thursday with Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Gang, a week after the two countries' defence ministers met in New Delhi to discuss military deployments on their disputed Himalayan border.
Jaishenkar wrote on Twitter after the meeting: "The focus continues on resolving outstanding issues and ensuring peace and tranquility in the border areas."