India to get SCO full membership in Astana, say Russia and China

Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif are expected to be in Astana, among other leaders from SCO member countries.

Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India's membership in Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Piskariovskoye Memorial Cemetery in St Petersburg on Thursday. PTI

Both China and Russia on Thursday said India will become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) when Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends the summit-level meeting in Kazakhstan capital Astana on June 8 and 9. While the Chinese foreign ministry said in Beijing that admission of India and Pakistan as full members to the SCO will be formalised at the political and security grouping’s summit in Kazakhstan next week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in St Petersburg that India will formally become a member of the SCO within a week.

Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif are expected to be in Astana, among other leaders from SCO member countries. In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said: “The member states of the SCO are accelerating the MoU procedures with the two countries and everything is going very well…. We also expect the Astana summit will complete the admission procedures for the two countries.” Hua also hoped that the admission of India and Pakistan as full members would help improve their bilateral relations. “Hope India and Pakistan strictly follow the charter of the SCO and the idea of good neighbourliness to uphold the SCO spirit, improve their relations and inject new impetus into the development of the SCO,” she said.

Hua said the SCO members had launched the process to accept India and Pakistan as members in 2015. She said the SCO will become a regional organisation with the largest coverage. In St Petersburg, Putin said: “As far as our international cooperation goes, one thing I would like to point out, in one week, India is becoming a full-fledged member of the SCO…. I would like to remind that the process was launched in 2015 in Ufa, Russia. Russia has always supported this and given full assistance to it.”

Story continues below this ad

Modi thanked Putin for his “active role” in getting India the SCO membership. “I thank you for all the initiatives taken,” he said. The SCO is a political, economic and military grouping headquartered in Beijing. Founded in 2001, it comprises Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan besides China as full members.

It is aimed at military cooperation between the members and involves intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism operations in Central Asia. Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan have observer status. During the 2015 summit in Ufa, Russia, the SCO formally adopted a resolution starting the process to admit India and Pakistan as full members. Both the countries signed a Memorandum of Obligations to join the organisation at last year’s summit in Tashkent.

(with PTI inputs from Beijing & St Petersburg)

Shubhajit Roy

Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram

Loading Taboola...

Bahraich faces new ‘wolf attacks’: 4 children mauled, 16 injured this month

Cities2 hr ago

As many as four children have been killed and 16 injured in wild animal attacks, suspected to be wolves, in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district this month — a chilling reminder of similar incidents that haunted the region last year. The body of one of the children is still missing. All those injured are adults, except for one child.

View all shorts

Live Blog