PM Modi Heads to China for SCO Summit

NEW DELHI:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday morning departed for China’s Qingdao to attend the two-day long 18th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
On Friday, the Prime Minister posted a message regarding the summit on his official Facebook account. “The SCO has a rich agenda for cooperation, ranging from fighting terrorism, separatism and extremism to promoting cooperation in connectivity, commerce, customs, law, health and agriculture; protecting the environment and mitigating disaster risk, and fostering people-to-people relations,” Prime Minister Modi said.
He also said he would be holding multiple meetings with the heads of various SCO member states on the sidelines of the summit. This will be India’s first participation in the summit as a full-time member of the organisation. India, along with Pakistan, became the full-time member during Astana summit in June 2017.
Prime Minister Modi is also scheduled to hold bilateral talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping apart from holding meetings with various other participating leaders.
Further, the member-countries, including India, Pakistan, China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, are expected to sign the Qingdao Declaration. The declaration will hold details of the significant mechanism for resisting the global terror activities.
The SCO is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation that focuses on strengthening mutual trust and neighbourliness among the member states and promoting their effective cooperation in politics, trade, the economy, research, technology and culture, and making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region.
The SCO has two sub-divisions including Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) and SCO Secretariat.