NEW DELHI: Leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will hold an online summit on Tuesday hosted by India’s Prime Minister Modi seeking to expand the influence of the Eurasian group.
China’s President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will participate in the virtual summit.
Formed in 2001 by China and Russia, with former Soviet central Asian states as members and joined later by India and Pakistan, the eight-member SCO is a political and security group that seeks to counter western influence in Eurasia.
While Iran is likely to be accepted as a member, Belarus will sign a memorandum of obligations which will lead to its membership later. When both countries, which have observer status and enjoy close ties to Moscow, are accepted as members of the SCO it will expand the grouping’s western flank in both Europe and Asia.
The summit takes place two weeks after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was hosted by US President Joe Biden for a state visit, and the two countries called themselves “among the closest partners in the world”.
India, which holds the presidency of SCO and the G20 this year, has walked a diplomatic tightrope as relations between western nations and a Russia-China partnership have been fraught due to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year, and Beijing’s growing assertive presence in the global geopolitical theatre.
Foreign Ministers of SCO members met in India’s coastal resort-state of Goa in May, which ended in old rivals India and Pakistan attacking each other over Kashmir, terrorism and a souring of bilateral ties.
