Amid concerns over China's support to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, Rajnath Singh told SCO India has right to defend after Pahalgam attack

After India refused to sign a joint declaration at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers' meeting in China on Thursday (June 26), India's Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told the Chinese Defence that India has the right to defend after the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 in Jammu and Kashmir. The conversation underlined India's concerns over China's support to Pakistan during the May conflict.

A day after the meeting, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar backed Rajnath Singh's stance on the joint statement. The Foreign Minister explained teh reason behind the decision of India not to sign the statement. Without taking the name of a Pakistani, Jaishankar said “one country” part of the SCO wanted no mention of terrorism in the joint statement, despite the SCO being formed to fight terrorism.

"The SCO was formed to fight terrorism. When Rajnath Singh went to the Defence Ministers' Meeting and there was a discussion on the outcome document, one country said they do not want a reference to that," Jaishankar said.

"Rajnath Singh's view rightly was, without that reference, that when the main purpose of the organisation is to fight terrorism, and you are not allowing a reference to that, he expressed his unwillingness to accept... SCO runs with unanimity," the foreign minister added. "So Rajnath ji clearly said that if there is no mention of terrorism in the statement, we will not sign it," he added. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh did not sign the document as it “would have diluted India’s stand."

What is SCO?

SCO is a major grouping of 10 countries – China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan, Iran, Belarus- that focuses on issues like counterterrorism, connectivity, etc. China is the host of the grouping for this year and will also be hosting the defence minister meeting in July and the summit in September.