Islamabad and New Delhi should put the past behind them and “live like good neighbours”, said former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday, reported India Today.

His remarks came a day after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar attended the head-of-state summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Islamabad. This was the first visit by an Indian foreign minister to Pakistan since 2015

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation comprises India, China, Pakistan, Russia and six other nations from the Eurasian region.

Sharif told India Today on Thursday that he hoped Jaishankar’s visit could lead to India and Pakistan tackling future problems, such as energy and climate change, together.

“We should pick up the threads from where we left,” the former prime minister told the news channel. He added: “75 years have passed like this. Let’s not waste 75 more years.”

Sharif said that one cannot change their neighbours. “We [India and Pakistan] should live like good neighbours,” he added.

At the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting on Wednesday, Jaishankar said that the cooperation among the members of the multilateral grouping should be based on mutual respect and the recognition of territorial integrity.

The external affairs minister said that a global shift towards multipolarity, rebalancing and globalisation had created new opportunities for trade, connectivity, flow of energy and other forms of collaboration.

The members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation would benefit from such collaboration, Jaishankar said.

“However … to do that, cooperation must be based on mutual respect and sovereign equality,” he said. “It should recognise territorial integrity and sovereignty. It must be built on genuine partnerships, not unilateral agendas.”

The partnerships cannot progress if member nations “cherry-pick global practices, especially of trade and transit”, Jaishankar said. It was evident that development and growth required peace and stability, he added.

Jaishankar said: “…this means being firm and uncompromising in countering the ‘three evils’. If activities across borders are characterised by terrorism, extremism and separatism, they are hardly likely to encourage trade, energy flows, connectivity and people-to-people exchanges in parallel.”