By S. S. Awan

The 22^nd Summit of the Council of Heads of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Member States (SCO-CoHS) just started today in Uzbekistan's Samarkand. Eight-member SCO grouping including including China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will be attended by leadership; Russia's Vladimir Putin, China's Xi Jinping, Iran's Ebrahim Raisi, Pakistan's Shehbaz Sharif, and other leaders from the Central Asian countries. The SCO Summit will be attended by the leaders of SCO member states, observer states, secretary general of the SCO, executive director of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), President of Turkmenistan and other invited guests. There are four observer states interested in acceding to full membership of the SCO include Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia. The SCO's six “dialogue partners” comprise Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey. This will be the first in-person summit, since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

 Formed in 1996 as the Shanghai Five, the group became the SCO in 2001 with the inclusion of Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan entered the group in 2017 and with Iran's entry in 2021, SCO became one of the largest multilateral organisations, accounting for nearly 30 per cent of global GDP and 40 per cent of the world’s population. It indicates that SCO is very important forum for the regional peace and stability. The SCO is considered as one of the most important gathering of the Central Asian region, where other nations have significant interests in trade, connectivity, and resource extraction and exploration.

Uzbekistan is the current chair of SCO 2022. India will be the next chair of the organization. Presidency of India can serve as alarming indication, as far as strategic interests of Pakistan are concerned.  As far as Indian side is concerned, PM Modi will hold bilateral talks with Putin, the Kremlin announced. This will be the first time that Modi will meet Putin, since the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. The meeting will be a critical balancing step for India in view of Russia's war with the eyes of the US on the summit. The summit and the Modi-Putin meeting will also coincide with the kicking in of the G7's price restriction mechanism on Russian oil.While there has been no official announcement of Modi holding bilateral with China's Xi, reports said that the two leaders could hold a brief conversation. This comes a couple of days after Indian and Chinese troops initiated cease-fire at Ladakh's Gogra-Hot springs, PP15.

As India will assume the presidency of the SCO until September 2023, the organization could also be a vocal platform for New Delhi to push the agenda of regional and cross-regional connectivity. India can also use the summit to push for the Chabahar port project and International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).

 The 22^nd regional summit of the SCO is going to start today in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. This is the first in-person summit of the bloc in two years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Samarkand last night and skipped the pre-summit events including an informal dinner. He is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin today. It is interesting to note that the Chinese leader Xi Jinping stayed away from a dinner attended by 11 heads of states at a regional security summit in line with his delegation's COVID-19 policy, a source in the Uzbek government told Reuters. He was absent from group photographs, published late yesterday, when the leaders went for dinner. An Uzbek government source confirmed Xi's absence and said the Chinese delegation cited its COVID-19 policy as the reason. This also indicates that Chinese government is adamant to curb this deadly disease.  

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met for their first face-to-face talks since the start of the conflict in Ukraine on Thursday, hailing their strategic ties in defiance of the West. Sitting across from each other at two long rounded tables and assisted by aides, the two leaders met on the sidelines of a summit of the SCO in ex-Soviet Uzbekistan’s city.

The meeting was part of Xi's first trip abroad, since the early days of the pandemic. For Putin, it was a chance to show Russia has not been fully isolated, despite Western efforts. "China is willing to make efforts with Russia to assume the role of great powers, and play a guiding role to promote stability and positive energy into a world, which is greatly affected by social disorder," Xi told Putin at the talks.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will have his first face-to-face discussion with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi on Friday, state media reported. The meeting comes days after the European Union warned that negotiations to bring Iran and the US back into a nuclear deal curbing Tehran's nuclear Programme are in the state of deadlock. SCO is a multicultural and multilateral forum, which if properly channelized, can usher an era of progress, development and prosperity in the region.