Eye on C Asia, India heads for Shanghai Six

External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh will reach Astana in Kazakhstan tomorrow. While Kazakhstan was expecting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, India has explained that the PM cannot be present at a summit where India is an observer.

The six-member SCO — comprising Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyztan — was formed in 2001. In the first year, it confined itself to regional security and border control, and outlined its objectives of combating the “three evil forces” of terrorism, extremism and separatism.

The idea of such an organisation was, however, mooted in April 1996 in Shanghai. It was to be a confidence-building forum. By 2001, its agenda included exchange of information on border forces, military exercises and a 100-km confidence zone on respective frontiers which was to be out of bounds for military activities.

Over the years, the SCO has enlarged its scope to cover political, economic and other spheres related to the region’s development.

India has always been keen on involving itself with the SCO, but it was only at its last year’s meeting at Tashkent that the group approved guidelines for admitting observer states. Mongolia was admitted first. India, Pakistan and Iran, too, applied.

Last month, the SCO foreign ministers’ meeting at Astana announced acceptance to these applications. President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, the current SCO chairman, then extended an invite to India, Pakistan and Iran. The three will become formal observers after the Tuesday’s meeting. Islamabad had applied for the SCO membership in 2001 itelf with the support of Beijing but Russia and its Central Asian allies blocked it. They favoured a full membership for India.

The MEA believes India can offer substantial cooperation to the group in the two principal areas of combating terrorism and economic cooperation.

The summit is crucial because it comes at a time when there are signs of political instability in some Central Asian states.