SCO Foreign Ministers Meet To Boost Cooperation In Security And Trade

The foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will meet on Friday to set the plan for the group’s summit in July. This will include steps to improve cooperation in security, trade, and business.

People who know about the situation said Thursday that External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will lead the meeting at the Taj Exotica Resort in this seaside village. At the meeting, 15 decisions or proposals to improve cooperation in a variety of areas are likely to be approved.

People who didn’t want to give specifics said that the decisions should make it easier for SCO members to work together on trade and commerce, strategic problems like security and counter-terrorism, and social and cultural issues.

“This meeting will be a kind of stock-taking and a place where ideas that are before the SCO can be discussed. One of the people above said, “The 15 decisions that have been talked about will be signed and sent to the SCO Summit in New Delhi in July.”

People say that, according to the SCO Charter, the group doesn’t talk about bilateral issues like India-Pakistan ties. Instead, they talk about important global problems like the situation in Ukraine and Afghanistan.

The External Affairs Ministry’s Secretary for Economic Relations, Dammu Ravi, told reporters, “The SCO foreign ministers’ most important job will be to evaluate the status of decisions that will be approved at the SCO Summit.”

Ravi said that the meeting will also be a chance to talk about the state of multilateral cooperation within the SCO, reform and modernization of the group, regional and global problems, and the process of making Iran and Belarus full members.

People say that the SCO Summit will make a final choice on whether or not to give Kuwait, Myanmar, the Maldives, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) the status of dialogue partner.

Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia are officially observers in the SCO. Egypt, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey are among the nine dialogue partners in the SCO.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was created in 2001, mostly at China’s request, as a group focused on security. In June 2017, India and Pakistan became full members. China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are also members.

Since India joined the SCO, it has worked to improve economic and cultural unity between its members.

“India can play a variety of roles, as shown by its membership in the G20, Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), IBSA (India, Brazil, and South Africa), and SCO. That shows that our job is important and that we are a force of balance. “I think all countries and groups agree with this,” the person said.

People also said that a plan for SCO members to pay for trade with each other in their own currencies is in the “very early stages” and that no decision has been made yet. They did, however, say that India had made the SCO process stronger, especially when it came to economic and sociocultural problems.

Ravi said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had explained India’s goals as the SCO chair with the theme “SECURE,” which stands for security, economic development, connectivity, unity, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, and environmental protection.

India has held more than 100 talks and events, including 15 ministerial meetings, while it has been in charge of the SCO. Ministers of defense, finance, environment, transportation, energy, tourism, and culture all meet at these events. In September 2022, at the last SCO Summit, which was started by India, it was decided to build two new mechanisms that would focus on new businesses and innovations, as well as traditional medicine.