EAM Jaishankar visiting Pakistan 'good step', says Farooq Abdullah

National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Monday said External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visiting Pakistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting is a "good step" and hoped that the ties between the two countries will improve.

India on Friday announced that Jaishankar will travel to Pakistan to attend a conclave of the SCO. Pakistan is hosting the SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG) meeting on October 15 and 16.

It will be for the first time in nearly nine years that India's external affairs minister will travel to Pakistan even as the ties between the two neighbours remain frosty over the Kashmir issue and cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan.

"Jaishankar ji is going to Pakistan for an SCO meeting. It's a very good step. I hope both countries think along the lines of friendship," Abdullah told PTI here.

The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said he would like to remind Jaishankar that former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had once sa