Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Astana (Kazakhstan) on Thursday and Friday to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting where India will be granted full membership along with Pakistan. The entry of two South Asian countries will provide a balance to the grouping that till now had Central Asia dominance.
In Astana, Modi is likely to have a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO Summit. "There is a possibility of a bilateral meeting between PM Modi and Chinese President at SCO Astana, but nothing is confirmed as of now," MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said on Wednesday. External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj had on Tuesday said no meeting between PM Modi and his Pak counterpart Nawaz Sharif is scheduled.
The meeting between Modi and Xi will take place in the backdrop of growing differences between India and China over several issues including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Nuclear Suppliers Group membership and sanctioning of Pak based terrorists by the United Nations. However, India continues to engage with China at several levels. After Astana, Modi and Xi are expected to meet at the G20 summit to be held next month in Hamburg, followed by BRICS summit to be held in China's Xiamen in September.
Talking about India's entry in SCO, Modi said on his Facebook page that India's entry to the grouping will lead to SCO representing over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of global GDP.
"We launched the process of full membership in Tashkent meeting of the SCO last year. I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter-terrorism cooperation, among other things. We have long-standing relations with SCO members and look forward to progressing them further through the SCO for mutual betterment and growth of our countries and our people. Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realizing our full potential," PM said.
According to Joint Secretary Eurasia, GV Sriniwas, the SCO words on two aspects — economic cooperation and fight against terrorism. "On economic aspect countries join hand to improve trade, connectivity, transportation, energy, banking, custom collaboration etc. While on terrorism they have several mechanisms including sharing database of terrorists, protecting classified information, and having joint military drills," Sriniwas said. Once India and Pakistan become part of SCO, their security forces too will be part of the joint military exercise against terrorism.
The group founded in Shanghai in 1996 is comprised of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan till now had the status of observers along with Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia.