Samarkand (Uzbekistan): Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Samarkand on Friday.
Uzbekistan is the current chair of SCO 2022 whereas India will be the next chair of the SCO. Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev welcomed PM Modi to the Congress Centre in Samarkand for the 22nd SCO Summit.
Putin congratulated India for assuming the presidency the following year. Apart from the Russian President, Chinese President Xi Jinping also congratulated India for the SCO Presidency in 2023 during the meeting of the expanded circle of the Heads of SCO.
"I congratulate India for hosting the SCO next year," Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a statement during the summit.
Notably, this is the first in-person SCO Summit after the Covid pandemic hit the world. The last in-person SCO Heads of State Summit was held in Bishkek in June 2019.
The SCO currently comprises eight Member States (China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), four Observer States interested in acceding to full membership (Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia) and six "Dialogue Partners" (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey).
The Shanghai Five, formed in 1996, became the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2001 with the inclusion of Uzbekistan. With India and Pakistan entering the grouping in 2017 and the decision to admit Tehran as a full member in 2021, SCO became one of the largest multilateral organisations, accounting for nearly 30 per cent of the global GDP and 40 per cent of the world's population.
SCO has potential in various new sectors, wherein all the member-states could find converging interests. India has already pushed hard for cooperation in Startups and Innovation, Science and Technology and Traditional Medicine.
From the time of its full membership, India made sincere efforts to encourage peace, prosperity, and stability of the whole Eurasian region in general and SCO member countries in particular.
PM Modi meets Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit here and the two leaders discussed issues of bilateral and mutual interests. The two leaders are in this historic Uzbek city of Samarkand to attend the 22nd SCO summit. Iran has been a key country for India in the Gulf region. The two sides have been jointly focusing on improving connectivity between South East Asia and Central Asia.
India has been projecting Iran's Chabahar Port as a key regional transit hub including Afghanistan. Located in the Sistan-Balochistan province on the energy-rich Iran's southern coast, the Chabahar port is being developed by India, Iran and Afghanistan to boost connectivity and trade ties. India has been in touch with Iran over the developments in Afghanistan as well following its takeover by the Taliban on August 15 last year.
Earlier this month, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held a telephonic conversation with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, focusing on bilateral cooperation, and the Iran nuclear deal. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, was finalised in 2015 between Tehran and several world powers including the European Union. It was aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions. The US had withdrawn from the deal in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran. There have been fresh efforts now to restore the deal. (With agency Inputs)
