SCO summit: all eyes are now on Islamabad

ISLAMABAD: All eyes are on Islamabad that is hosting, Tuesday, a two-day meeting of the Council of the Heads of Government (CHG) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states.

Including Pakistan, the 23rd CHG meeting is being attended by 12 countries; China, India, Iran, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Turkmenistan.

As many as seven prime ministers — a vice president, a foreign minister, among other senior leaders, are attending the event.

Pakistan all set to host 23rd SCO meeting in Islamabad: Deputy PM Dar

According to an official statement from Pakistan’s Foreign Office, Chinese PM Li Qiang, Russian PM Mikhail Mishustin, Abdulla Aripov (Uzbekistan), Roman Golovchenko (Belarus), Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai (Mongolia), Kohir Rasulzoda (Tajikistan), Olzhas Bekteno (Kazakhstan), India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Iran’s First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Aref and SCO Secretary General Zhang Ming are among the delegates attending the event.

In his capacity as the current Chair of the CHG, PM Shehbaz Sharif is presiding over the CHG meeting, the statement said.

The PM will also hold important bilateral meetings with visiting heads of delegation on the sidelines of the meeting, it added.

The CHG meeting will discuss ongoing cooperation in the fields of economy, trade, environment, socio-cultural linkages and review the performance of the Organisation, the press release said.

The leaders will adopt important organisational decisions to further enhance cooperation among SCO member states and approve the budget of the Organisation, added the statement. The SCO is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation established on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai, China.

As per its charter, the SCO’s goals are: to strengthen mutual trust, friendship and “good-neighbourliness” between the member states; to encourage the effective cooperation between the member states in such spheres as politics, trade, economy, science and technology, culture, education, energy, transport, tourism, environmental protection to jointly ensure and maintain peace, security and stability in the region; and to promote a new democratic, fair and rational international political, and economic international order.

The CHG meets once a year to discuss the strategy of multilateral cooperation within the SCO.

The SCO has nine member states; China, Pakistan, India, Iran, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

The three observer states are: Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia. In 2022, the process of raising the status of Belarus to the level of a member state began at the Samarkand SCO Summit.

In addition, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bahrain, Egypt, Cambodia, Qatar, Kuwait, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Sri Lanka are SCO’s 14 dialogue partners.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024