New Delhi will host the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of State meeting in virtual mode on July 4, the Indian Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday evening.
The Indian statement didn’t spell out any reasons for not hosting the in-person summit.
India to Conclude SCO Presidency in Two Months
The meeting will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and marks the concluding event under the Indian presidency of the eight-state Eurasian political, security, and economic grouping.
The previous SCO Summit in Samarkand last year was attended by all the heads of state, including the Indian leader, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The Indian Foreign Ministry said that all the SCO member states -- China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan—have been invited to attend the leaders’ meeting.
It said that Iran, Belarus and Mongolia have been invited to the meeting as “observer states”. Further, Turkmenistan has also been invited as the “guest of the chair”.
The Indian statement said that heads of the SCO secretariat and that of SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), the two permanent bodies of the organization, have also been invited to participate in the event.
Further, heads of the six international and regional mechanisms—United Nations, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA)—will be participating in the virtual meeting.
‘Towards a SECURE SCO’
The Indian statement said that the theme of the July summit is ‘towards a SECURE SCO’. The ‘SECURE’ acronym was coined by Prime Minister Modi at the SCO leaders’ meeting in 2018 and stands for security, economy and trade, connectivity, unity, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity and environment.
New Delhi has said that it has set-up launched new areas of cooperation under its SCO presidency, including in the realms of startups and innovation, traditional medicine, digital inclusion, youth empowerment and shared Buddhist heritage.
“In addition, India has worked towards fostering greater people to people ties that celebrate the historical and civilizational bonds between our nations. These include the various socio-cultural events hosted by Varanasi under the framework of the first-ever SCO Cultural and Tourist Capital for 2022-23,” the Indian statement noted.