New Delhi: PM Narendra Modi will meet both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in separate bilateral meetings on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit at Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan on June 13-14. India is likely to take up the issue of terrorism at the SCO when PM Modi addresses the Summit on June 14.
The SCO is an eight-member Central Asian Grouping that comprises China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, India, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. India and Pakistan became SCO members in 2017. No bilateral meeting has been scheduled with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan though it remains to be seen whether there is any impromptu "pull-aside" informal meeting with the Pakistan PM.
On whether the menace of terrorism would be raised at the conference at a time when Pakistan is under the global scanner for state-sponsored terrorism, senior MEA officials indicated that New Delhi would raise the issue pertaining to the threat that terrorism poses to all nations. The MEA's Secretary (West) Gitesh Sarma said, "We will do whatever we have to. Terrorism is a danger to all." However, speculation is rife that New Delhi may not directly raise the issue of terrorism emanating from Pakistani soil or territory controlled by it due to the multilateral nature of SCO. Interestingly, certain multilateral defence exchanges of the SCO are scheduled for later this year that could include both Indian and Pakistani troops.
The troops of the two countries could be part of the same exercise, for the first time since the military tension in February.
Apart from separate bilateral meetings with the Chinese and Russian presidents, India has also received a request for a bilateral meeting with at least one more SCO member-country which MEA officials did not name.
MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar meanwhile reiterated that there would be no bilateral meeting between the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers on the sidelines of the SCO conference. Pakistan PM Imran Khan had recently written reportedly to PM Modi while Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had written to new External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, suggesting a dialogue between the two neighbours.
