The persisting stand-offs at the border in Ladakh for the last two years despite several rounds of military and diplomatic level talks will figure prominently during a likely bilateral meeting between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Tashkent on July 28-29.
Both the leaders will be there to attend the meeting of the Shanghai Council of Foreign Ministers in Samarkand.
The Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO) grouping will assemble there at the invitation of Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan Vladimir Norov.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto will also take part in the deliberations. However, there is no confirmation on the likelihood of talks between him and Jaishankar. He is likely to have a bilateral meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the SCO conclave besides several other ministers.
Giving details of Jaishankar’s schedule, the ministry of external affairs said here on Wednesday the meeting will discuss preparations for the upcoming Meeting of the Council of Heads of State on 15-16 September 2022 in Samarkand. They will review ongoing cooperation in expansion of the SCO Organisation and exchange ideas on regional and global developments of common concern. The Heads of State meeting next month may see Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jingping having parleys on the sidelines of the conclave, sources said.
As regards likely talks between Jaishankar and Wang Yi, they said the two leaders will review the progress made on efforts to resolve the ongoing face-offs at the Line of Actual Control(LAC)in Eastern Ladakh. They will also discuss the takeaways from the Corps Commander level talks between India and China earlier this month. It was the 16th round of talks at the military level since trouble erupted at the LAC in May 2020.
It will be second in person meeting between Jaishankar and Wang Yi in last few months. He was first Chinese minister to visit India in March since face-offs in 2020. The two ministers then held detailed discussions on finding ways to hasten up process of disengagement from remaining friction points at LAC.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation, the creation of which was announced on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai (China) by Republic of Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Russian Federation, Republic of Tajikistan, and Republic of Uzbekistan.
It was preceded by the Shanghai Five mechanism.
In terms of geographic scope and population, the SCO is the world's largest regional organization, covering approximately 60 percent of the area of Eurasia, 40 percent of the world population, and more than 30 percent of global GDP.