More articles by

Rekha Dixit
Rekha Dixit

bilateral chat

Modi unlikely to have tête-à-tête with Sharif at Astana

narendra-modi-ji (File photo) Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to have an 'unofficial' bilateral chat with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meet at Astana although the two might interact on the multilateral stage.

Modi will be heading to Astana on June 8 for the two-day meet, at which India will be formally inducted into the regional club.

India had applied for membership in 2014, though it had observer status since 2005. In 2015, at the meet in Ufa, India was told it was welcome to join the club and in 2016, at Tashkent, the process of formalising the membership began. Since then, India signed 38 obligatory documents relating to the membership. India's formal entry will be announced at the Astana meet.

The meet will also see the formal induction of Pakistan into the club. Pakistan applied for membership in 2006, but its application was processed at the same time as India's after the SCO reorganised its rules of inducting new members.

With hostilities between the two nations escalating, there was a hope that some back door diplomacy would help arrange a meeting between Modi and Sharif. Indian businessman and close friend of Sharif, Sajjan Jindal, had gone to Pakistan to work this out, but the Pakistani military, not keen on the meet, blew the cover. With the beheading of Indian soldiers some days later and India winning a stay on former naval commander Kulbhushan Jadhav's execution from the International Court of Justice, the environment for holding talks has worsened.

Unless there is some impromptu move by one of them, the Astana outing isn't likely see a bilateral chat between Modi and Sharif. So far, there has been no request from Pakistan in this direction. Modi, however, is scheduled to have “a couple of bilaterals'' which could include one with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The SCO is an Eurasian club that was founded in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. While the main objective of the Shanghai Five (precursor to SCO) was deepening military trust, security and anti-terrorism co-operation, its role has also evolved to encompass regional connectivity trade and commerce. SCO members have held joint military exercises in the past.

Joint Secretary (Eurasia ) G.V Srinivas said how India benefits from this membership will be understood only later. It is important to be part of the group since it was a club in the neighbourhood and addresses issues that were of concern to the region, he added.

“It is a relatively new organisation. Its role is evolving,'' he said.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Gopal Baglay added that since most SCO member countries were neighbours of Afghanistan, it provided India with a multilateral platform to engage in the rebuilding of Afghanistan, which is one of the important foreign policy objectives of India.

While in Astana, Modi will also attend the World Exposition, along with the leaders of the other countries.

This browser settings will not support to add bookmarks programmatically. Please press Ctrl+D or change settings to bookmark this page.

Related Reading

    Show more