PM Modi to attend SCO Summit in Samarkand, all eyes on bilateral meetings

After the Samarkand summit, the presidency of the SCO will be handed over to India for the next year till September 2023. New Delhi will most likely host the next SCO summit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Samarkand in Uzbekistan to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit to be held between September 15 and 16. This will be the first in-person summit after the 2019 summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, as reported by Indian Express (IE). 

The report added that PM Modi may reach Samarkand on September 14 and return on September 16. After the 2022 summit, the presidency of the SCO will be handed over to India for the next year till September 2023. New Delhi will most likely host the next SCO summit. 

Among the leaders who have confirmed attending the event are Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Shahbaz Sharif, and Ebrahim Raisi. Although no announcement of any bilateral meeting has been made by the government yet, the IE report quoted sources as saying that Modi may meet with Putin and Raisi on the sidelines of the summit.

PM Modi and Jinping last met at the BRICS Summit in 2019. If the two leaders meet at the summit, they will do so for the first time after the fallout between the armed forces of India and China in Ladakh in May 2020. 

Lately, the troops have started to disengage from the last remaining friction point, Point 15 in Gogra-Hot Springs region. The disengagement is scheduled to end by September 12.  

PM Modi will "certainly" meet Uzbekistan president Shavkat Mirziyoyev at the summit. 

The leaders at the summit are likely to discuss the war in Ukraine and the situation in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, the IE report stated. 

In July, foreign minister S Jaishankar travelled to Uzbekistan to attend the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers meeting. 

SCO was founded in 2001 in Shanghai. It currently has eight members namely, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran, Afghanistan, Belarus, and Mongolia have been granted the status of observer states. The organisation mainly focuses on regional security issues and development.