Russia will continue to oppose Western sanctions, President Vladimir Putin has said, following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

His address to a virtual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit was his first to an international meeting since last month’s mutiny in Russia.

Mr Putin backed trade accords between SCO nations in local currencies – seen as an attempt to blunt sanctions.

The 2023 SCO summit is taking place virtually, under India’s leadership.

Mr Putin used the platform to send a message of defiance to the West, saying “Russia counters all these external sanctions, pressures and provocations and continues to develop as never before”.

He has made several public appearances since the Wagner mercenary group staged a short-lived mutiny in late June, but this was the first time he’d been seen with a group of international leaders.

“I would like to thank my colleagues from the SCO countries who expressed support for the actions of the Russian leadership to protect the constitutional order and the life and security of citizens,” he told the summit in a televised address from the Kremlin in Moscow.

Mr Putin added that more than 80% of trade between Chinese and Russian people was in roubles and yuan, and urged other SCO members to follow the same process.

He also welcomed Russian ally Belarus’s application to become a permanent member of the SCO next year.

Summit host Indian PM Narendra Modi called on members to boost trade, connectivity and tech co-operation, among other things.

But he didn’t directly refer to either the war in Ukraine or China’s increasingly assertive stance in the Indo-Pacific. India – historically non-aligned – had to walk a tight diplomatic rope, due to its increasingly strong ties with the West.

Just days earlier the US had rolled out the red carpet for Mr Modi when he was received in Washington on a state visit.

While Mr Modi talked about regional security, he did not mention China, a neighbour with whom India has long had hostile relations. Indian and Chinese troops fought deadly clashes on their long disputed border in 2020 and tensions persist to this day.

The West increasingly sees India as a counterweight to China, although Delhi has publicly never owned the tag. And it once again refrained from doing so at the SCO.

India’s PM instead urged members to co-operate on cross-border terrorism.

“Some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument in their policies, (they) give shelter to terrorists… the SCO should not hesitate to criticise such countries,” Mr Modi said.

Such statements are always seen as directed at neighbouring Pakistan, India’s bitter rival over the decades. Its Prime Minister, Shahbaz Sharif, said SCO nations must take measures to “combat the three evils of terrorism, extremism and separatism”.

But he also said religious minorities should not be demonised in the “pursuit of domestic political agendas” – viewed as a dig at India, which Muslim-majority Pakistan has often accused of not protecting the rights of Muslims.

Mr Modi’s government has always rejected evidence that it is not protecting the rights of minorities in India, whose population is largely Hindu.

When it was Chinese President Xi Jinping’s turn to speak, he mentioned the importance of safeguarding regional peace and security. He urged SCO members to “follow the right direction and enhance their solidarity and mutual trust”.

One factor that all members seemed to agree on unanimously was maintaining stability in Afghanistan, following the Taliban takeover after US troops pulled out two years ago.

A joint statement due later should give more clues on how SCO nations aim to work together on Afghanistan.

China, Russia and four Central Asian countries formed the SCO in 2001 as a countermeasure to limit the influence of the West in the region. India and Pakistan joined in 2017.

The group has become more relevant for Russia and China as their relations with the West have deteriorated.

Experts say the group’s potential can’t be underplayed, despite the existence of more prominent forums like the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the G20 and G7.

The SCO groups around 40% of the world’s population and more than 20% of global GDP. Add Iran’s, and it will control around 20% of the world’s oil reserves.

Iran’s inclusion as a full member at this year’s meeting will boost the SCO’s energy portfolio but it will spark anger in Western capitals. As the SCO is increasingly pitted against Western-led forums, it may get harder for India to strike a diplomatic balance between its different global partners.

But Indian diplomats say they are confident about keeping their foreign policy independent without pandering to one group or the other. How Delhi manages its diplomacy – and its differences with Russia, China and Pakistan in particular – will have an impact on future of the SCO.

Source: British Broadcasting Corporation

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ASTANA – Kazakhstan is set to assume the chairmanship of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) from July 2023 to July 2024, following the upcoming online meeting of the SCO Heads of State Council on July 4.

According to Kazakhstan’s National Coordinator for the SCO Murat Mukushev, during its presidency, Kazakhstan will focus on fostering balanced development across all areas of cooperation, including security, trade, economy, culture, and humanitarian efforts. 

“Kazakhstan aims to enhance the SCO activities and position the organization as a reliable platform for fruitful cooperation, featuring around 80 events during the country’s chairmanship,” said Mukushev during a May 31 Central Communications Service briefing.

The SCO summit will be held next year in Astana. 

“The summit’s outcomes will play a crucial role in upholding peace and stability in the region, promoting sustainable development, and strengthening humanitarian cooperation within the SCO,” he said. 

Almaty has been designated the SCO’s cultural and tourism capital for 2023-2024.

The SCO is a permanent intergovernmental international organization founded in June 2001 in Shanghai by China, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

In 2017, India and Pakistan became full members. In 2021, the SCO leaders approved Iran’s bid to join the SCO. During the SCO summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, last year, the member states agreed to start the accession of Belarus to the SCO.

In March this year, the SCO welcomed Saudi Arabia as a dialogue partner with Qatar and Egypt, who signed respective memoranda in Samarkand.

Source: Astana Times

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It will be Putin’s first participation in a multilateral summit after a mercenary group launched a short-lived armed rebellion last week that rocked Moscow.

The summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) under India’s presidency is also set to welcome Iran as the new permanent member of the grouping.

The summit is also taking place against the backdrop of the over three-year eastern Ladakh border standoff between Indian and Chinese troops, and two weeks after Prime Minister Modi’s high-profile visit to the US.

The SCO, comprising India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, is an influential economic and security bloc and has emerged as one of the largest transregional international organisations.
India assumed the rotating chairmanship of the SCO at the Samarkand Summit of SCO on September 16 last year.

Heads of the two SCO bodies — the secretariat and the SCO RATS (Regional Anti- Terrorist Structure) are also set to attend Tuesday’s virtual summit whose theme is “Towards a SECURE SCO!The situation in Afghanistan, the Ukraine conflict and enhancing cooperation among the SCO member countries are expected to figure in the summit, people familiar with the matter said, adding boosting connectivity and trade is also likely to be discussed.

The SECURE acronym was coined by Prime Minister Modi at the 2018 SCO summit and it stands for Security; Economy and Trade; Connectivity; Unity; Respect for Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity; and Environment.

Heads of six international and regional organisations have also been invited to the summit.
The organisations are the UN, the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organisation), EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union) and CICA (Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia).

India’s presidency of the SCO saw significant activities in a number of areas. New Delhi created five new pillars for cooperation in SCO. These are startups and innovation, traditional medicine, digital inclusion, youth empowerment and shared Buddhist heritage.

The special working group on startups and innovation and experts working group on traditional medicine were created on India’s initiative.
“We intend to contribute substantially in both these areas,” said one of the people cited above.

To further Prime Minister Modi’s vision of Vasudhaiv Kutumbakom (world is one family), India emphasised on building greater people-to-people connect, the person said.
A number of signature events were held under the Indian presidency with the intention to further deepen people to people connect.

India’s association with the SCO began in 2005 as an observer country. It became a full member state of SCO at the Astana summit in 2017.

India has shown a keen interest in deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its RATS, which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.

The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Pakistan became its permanent member along with India in 2017.

Source: Times of India

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However, in attendance will be Chinese defence minister Gen Li Shangfu and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu. The two ministers will attend the meeting along with other SCO member countries scheduled for April 27 and 28.

The SCO member countries are India, Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan.

Sources in the defence and security establishment told ThePrint that the Pakistani defence minister is unlikely to join the meeting in person even though their foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will attend the Foreign Ministers’ meeting early May in Goa.

The sources said that the Pakistani defence minister could join in through video conferencing even though a formal invite was sent out to him like rest of the SCO ministers.

India got the chairmanship of the SCO last year at the Samarkand summit in Uzbekistan, and is hosting key ministerial meetings in the run up to the summit in July.

Talks with Chinese & Russian defence ministers

The visit by Gen Li, who took over in March, is the first by a Chinese defence minister since the tensions that broke out at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two countries in eastern Ladakh.

Last month, the Chinese foreign minister had visited India for the G20 meeting and also held talks with external affairs minister S. Jaishankar.

The Chinese defence minister is a key person in the Chinese military set up and has overlooked several key projects and is the first from its Strategic Support Force (SSF) to be part of the country’s Central Military Commission — a body headed by President Xi Jinping  and which oversees the People’s Liberation Army, the People’s Armed Police, and the Militia of China.

The SSF was created in 2015 as part of plans to restructure military management to focus on space, cyber, political and electronic warfare.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh will also have a bilateral meeting with Gen Li during which the vexed issue of the LAC tensions will come up for discussion, sources told ThePrint.

While both militaries have disengaged from the northern and southern banks of the Pangong Tso, Gogra and the Hot Springs area since the stand-off began in May 2020, tensions remain in Depsang Plains and Demchok.

Both sides have failed to make any headway with regard to Depsang and Demchok, where tensions predate the ongoing stand-off. Also, though troops have disengaged at several locations along the LAC, they continue to remain deployed in forward areas, along with their armoured and artillery equipment.

India has sought for de-escalation, which would entail the return of all additional troops and equipment in forward areas to their pre-April 2020 positions.

Singh will also hold bilateral talks with Russian defence minister Shoigu. This will be his first visit to India since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict last year.

However, India and Russia have continued to maintain high profile visits and interactions including the recent visit of Russian deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov for the 24th India-Russia Inter-governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC).

The defence cooperation between the two countries has also advanced from a simple buyer-seller relationship to a more comprehensive collaboration, including joint research, development, production, and marketing of advanced defence technologies and systems.

Russia continues to remain a key defence partner for India with the latter operating several of legacy Russian equipment while also going in for the purchase of new ones like the S-400 Triumf air defence systems.

Source : Theprint

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