SCO Summit: India, Pakistan, Russia and China to join key meet | What to expect

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to the historical city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan to attend the 22nd edition of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit that begins today, September 15. He will be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday and is likely to hold talks with the Presidents of Uzbekistan and Iran on the sidelines of the forum, said reports.

The two-day summit will also be attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

This would be the first in-person meeting of the Council of Heads of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Member States (SCO-CoHS) after June 2019 when they met in Bishkek. During the two years of the pandemic, the SCO Summit was held virtually. Russia hosted the meeting in 2020, while Tajikistan was the host in 2021.

The SCO summit comes amid tensions over the Russia-Ukraine war and India's border disputes with China. As part of the summit, the leaders are likely to review the grouping's activities over the past two decades and also discuss the prospects of multilateral cooperation.

India will focus on the security situation in the region, expansion of grouping, trade and connectivity at the SCO Samarkand Summit, foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra said. There would also be discussions on anti-terrorism as well.

Apart from having bilateral meetings with the host country, Russia and Iran, the PM will have meetings with other leaders as well. When asked about a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the foreign secretary said: “Will keep you apprised.”

This will also be the first time the Indian prime minister will come face to face with Chinese leader Xi Jinping after their BRICS meeting at Brasília in 2019.

The SCO summit will also be Jinping’s first foreign trip in almost 1,000 days. Jinping was scheduled to make a state visit to Kazakhstan on Wednesday before going to Uzbekistan for the regional summit.

Iran is expected to be formally inducted into the SCO grouping in the Samarkand summit.

The grouping could provide India with a platform to initiate multilateral and regional initiatives on counter-terrorism and deal with the illicit drug trade.

Pakistan has reportedly resorted to narco-terrorism as a weapon in its proxy war against India. As a result, the Kashmir Valley has witnessed a 2,000 percent rise in heroin abuse in the last five years, ANI reported. India could use the SCO forum to tackle these challenges.

India could also use the forum to push for the Chabahar port project and International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). India established a trilateral working group with Iran and Uzbekistan in 2020 to seek greater convergence on Chabahar port and other connectivity projects. The port is seen by Uzbekistan as an opportunity to diversify its export markets in oil and gas.

Headquartered in Beijing, the SCO is made up of countries like China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

As the world's largest regional organisation, the SCO accounts for about 60 percent of the area of Eurasia, 40 percent of the world population, and over 30 percent of the global GDP.

The Shanghai Five formed in 1996 was later renamed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2001 with the entry of Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan became a part of the grouping in 2017. With the decision to admit Iran as a full member in 2021, SCO became one of the largest multilateral organisations in the world.