India-Pak partners in anti-terror group?
India and Pakistan — which are set to become members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) — may have to participate together in antiterror initiatives of the grouping in what could emerge as a supreme irony, given that India accuses Pakistan of fomenting terrorism.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will leave for Astana, Kazakhstan, for the two-day SCO meet on Thursday and Friday in which the membership of the two south Asian neighbours is likely to be announced. PM Modi is also expected to have a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit, a meeting that will be keenly watched after India’s recent boycott of the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative and amid China’s intransigence on refusing to give the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) the green signal to admit India as a member. No bilateral meeting has been scheduled between PM Modi and Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif there although it remains to be seen whether a brief informal impromptu meeting takes place between the two leaders.
The SCO was founded in 2001 and currently has six members, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. With the addition of India and Pakistan, the number of members will become eight. India had applied for SCO membership in 2014. The SCO has two components in its objectives, with one being the economic one that includes connectivity, banking and other issues while the second one deals with anti-terror initiatives. In a statement on social media, PM Modi said, “I will travel to Astana, Kazakhstan, for two days on June 8 for the summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full Member of the SCO upon which SCO will represent over 40% of humanity and nearly 20% of the global GDP. We launched the process of full membership in Tashkent meeting last year. I look forward to deepening India’s association with the SCO, which will help us in economic, connectivity and counterterrorism cooperation.”