Deora to lead team to Shanghai, Almaty meets

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora would lead the Indian delegation to the 6th summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation...

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora would lead the Indian delegation to the 6th summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) at Shanghai and to the 2nd summit of the Conference on Interactions and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) at Almaty. The SCO summit meeting is scheduled for June 15, while the CICA summit is to be held on June 17.

India was admitted as observer to the SCO in July 2005. At present China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are members while Mongolia, Pakistan and Iran are the other observers. President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has been invited as special guest to the summit meeting.

Deora is likely to hold bilateral meetings with various leaders on the sidelines of both the summits. SCO is increasingly being viewed as an important organisation by India to promote cooperation to counter terrorism and drug trafficking and for the promotion of economic and cultural cooperation. Also, CICA is being considered an important process to concentrate on removal of poverty and promotion of socio-economic development through close bilateral and regional cooperation.

India has been an active member of the CICA process since its inception. Currently CICA has seventeen members. In addition to all the member and observer states of SCO, it includes Azerbaijan, Afghan-istan, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Thailand and Turkey. CICA held one summit in 2002 and two foreign ministerial meetings in 1999 and 2004 respectively.

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