Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lead the Indian delegation to the 21st meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of State, to be held on Friday in Dushanbe (Tajikistan) in a hybrid format.
The meeting will be chaired by Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and the leaders of three other Central Asian countries– Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Modi will address the plenary session of the summit via video-link while External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be physically present in Dushanbe for the meet, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.
This is the first SCO summit being held in a hybrid format and the fourth that India will participate as its full-fledged member.
This summit is significant as the organisation, considered a Eurasian political, economic, and security alliance is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
At the summit, the leaders are expected to review the organisation’s activities over the past two decades and discuss the state and prospects of future cooperation. Topical issues of regional and international importance are also expected to be discussed.
The summit assumes significance since it is taking place in the backdrop of ongoing crisis in Afghanistan in the wake of the withdrawal by American troops from the troubled country.
Almost all the SCO members are neighbours of Afghanistan and have been keeping a close watch on the developments there. Afghanistan also is an observer at SCO meetings and it will be interesting to see whether it will be represented at the Dushanbe meeting.
In the last two months, the SCO has held several meetings at the level of foreign and defence ministers and national security advisors (NSAs).
EOM