PM Modi, Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi to attend SCO Samarkand summit: Uzbekistan

All the eight leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, or SCO, will be attending the summit next week in person in Uzbekistan's cultural capitalSamarkand. The press secretary of Uzbekistan's President, Sherzod Asadov, in a Facebook post said that this will be the first in-person meeting of the SCO leaders since 2019 and will conclude the doubly landlocked central Asian country's chairmanship of the organization. In a picture he posted along with the message, he listed the names of all the eight leaders of the member states who will attend the summit in the country from September 15th to 16th.

The leaders include the host Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sadyr Japarov, and Tajikistan's President Emomali Rahmon.

The grouping, which was formed in 2001, is one of the largest on the planet in terms of geographical size, population, and GDP. Sherzod in the statement said, "The following were at the core of Uzbekistan's chairmanship at SCO: - strengthening of economic ties and trade; promoting industrial and tech. cooperation; furthering broader connectivity; digital transformation and green economy; strengthening the international profile of SCO."

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In all, 15 leaders will be attending the mega summit, including eightmember countries, threeobserver countries, and four invited guests. The leaders of the observer countries include Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, and Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh.

The leaders who have been invited as guests at the summit are Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and Turkmenistan President Serdar Berdimuhamedow.

The summit is happening at a time whenglobal geopolitical changes, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Taiwan Strait crisis, and provides ample opportunities for the leaders to also hold bilateral talks. It is not known right now if PM Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold talks or not, but ahead of the summit, they announced the start of disengagement at Gogra-Hotsprings PP15, which is expected to be concluded by Monday, September 12th.

The ministry of external affairs said, "It has been agreed that all temporary structures and other allied infrastructure created in the area by both sides will be dismantled and mutually verified. The landforms in the area will be restored to the pre-stand-off period by both sides."

The development comes after the 16th round of the India-China Corps Commander Level Meeting that took place on July 17th. India and China have already undertaken disengagement at finger areas of Pangong Lake (Feb 2021), Gogra Hot Springs PP17, Galwan. But friction areas like Depsang and Demchok remain.

Ties between the twocountrieshave nosedived since the 2020 Galwan incident, in which aggressive actions by Chinese forces led to the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers. China, after much delay, accepted that it lost four of its soldiers, a claim that remains doubtful given Beijing's track record on transparency.

It is also not yet known if he will be meeting Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif, and the likelihood also remains dim. The relationship between India and Pakistan remains in a deep freeze over Islamabad's support for cross-border terror. After New Delhi removed the special status for the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, Pakistan suspended people-to-people and trade ties with it.

India is expected to raise issues like Afghanistan, counter-terrorism, connectivity, and trade at the summit, but a key outcome will be the handing over of the presidency of the group. Under its presidency, India will host the SCO summit next year, inviting all member countries, including the Pakistani and Chinese leadership. This year, the grouping also expanded to include Iran as its ninthmember. The last major expansion of the grouping was in 2017 when both India and Pakistan became members.

Last week, Russian President Putin confirmed that he would hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He told Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China Li Zhanshu, "I will meet with President Xi Jinping soon, during the events related to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which will be held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan."

Li Zhanshu, the third highest ranking leader in the Chinese communist party, was in Russia to participate in the Eastern Economic Forum.

It is important to know that this will be the first foreign visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping abroad since the COVID pandemic. He last visited abroad threeyears ago, which was a visit to Myanmar in January 2020.

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