India is hosting the SCO Summit 2023. Today’s summit of the SEO Council of Heads of State will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Pakistan Prime Minister Sheba Sharif among the attendees.
Now the theme of the summit is security. SEO and Iran are set to join the group. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SEO), to give you some background, is an intergovernmental organisation founded in Shanghai on the 15th of June, way back in 2001.
Since its inception, the SEO has mainly focused on Regional security issues and the fight against terrorism, separatism, and extremism.
The priorities of the group also include regional development. The SEO has been an observer at the United Nations General Assembly since 2005.
The SEO currently comprises eight member states. India Russia China Pakistan Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan and Uzbekistan SEO observer states include Iran and are interested in proceeding to full membership.
India’s presidency is set to welcome Iran as a new permanent member of the grouping. The SEO also has dialogue. Partners Armenia Azerbaijan Cambodia Nepal Sri Lanka and Turkey are now in Egypt in 2021 Egypt.Qatar and Saudi Arabia became dialogue partners of the SEO as well.
Today’s key meeting marks Russian President Putin’s first summit since the field Wagner mutiny The Summit is also taking place against the backdrop of the over three-year Lavac standoff between Indian and Chinese troops earlier.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shabbat Sharif dubbed the SEO an important forum for regional security and prosperity.
India attaches special importance to SEO in promoting multilateral political, economic, and people-to-people interactions in the region.
SEO pursues its policy based on the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and non-interference in internal affairs.
What can we expect from the virtual meetup here? Well, the virtual meeting will see India host the summit for the first time.
since becoming a member of the grouping in 2017, and there will be first a joint declaration, that’s the Delhi Declaration.
Second, there will be other key outcome documents; one would be on counterterrorism. India’s focus when it comes to this particular grouping has been on issues related to connectivity, counterterrorism, and its shared history, especially with the Central Asian countries now on connectivity.
In the past, India has used this platform to talk about how connectivity needs to be transparent and should respect sovereignty and territory. Integrity of countries: now this is a clear message to Beijing, whose CPEC, or China-Pakistan’s economic corridor, passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
India, of course, has been pitching CharbarPort as a key connectivity project that connects India with a wider Central Asian region via Iran. another, of course.
The focus has been on counterterrorism, which is a worry for countries in the region, whether it’s Iran or not. India, Central Asia, even China, and of course Russia as well.
Another key outcome that is, of course, an outcome for the larger SEO group is the membership of Iran. Iran becomes a full-fledged member of the grouping.
The grouping is already very large in terms of its geography, its trade, and its population, and with Iran’s presence, this grouping will expand further.
Other countries were Keen to become dialogue partners, while others were keen to become observer members, and we will see a rapid expansion of the grouping, especially with Belarus expected to become a full-fledged member of the grouping next year.
