Russia, China defence ministers to attend SCO meet in Delhi next week
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Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu will attend a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in New Delhi next week along with their counterparts from other member nations of the grouping.
The two ministers will attend the SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting scheduled on April 27 and 28 which will be hosted by Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh. The main day of engagement will be 28th April.
Issues related to terrorism, regional security and the security situation in Afghanistan are among the topics expected to dominate the meeting.
The SCO member countries are India, Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan.
The SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting will be followed by a meeting of the Foreign Ministers on May 5 in Goa, which will also be attended by Pakistan Foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
This marks the first ministerial visit from Pakistan to India since the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status in 2019, which led to a freeze in ties, including the suspension of bus and train services by Islamabad.
The last visit by a Pakistani FM to India was in 2011 by Hina Rabbani Khar, although Pakistan's Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz, visited Amritsar, India, in 2016 to attend the Heart of Asia meet on Afghanistan.
While India had invited Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif to the meeting, there is no confirmation yet whether he will attend it.
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu will visit India for the first time since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict last year. The visit comes amid a series of high-level engagements between India and Russia, such as the visit of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov for the 24th India-Russia talks.
The upcoming visit by the Chinese defence minister Shangfu to Delhi marks the first such visit since the 2020 Galwan incident, which saw aggressive action by China at the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh, resulting in the death of 20 Indian soldiers.
Since then, ties have been strained between the two nations including continued Chinese provocation, including a staking claim to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.
Last year, the then-Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi visited India, followed by the visit of the new Chinese FM Qin Gang this year for the G20 foreign ministers meet. Minister Shangfu took charge in March this year.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a regional intergovernmental group of eight member states, covering more than 60% of the Eurasian landmass, 40% of the world population, and 30% of the global GDP. India has a long-standing association with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) prior to becoming a full member. In 2005, India was granted observer status and later became a full member of the grouping in 2017.
