14 decisions signed at SCO summit, Russia to host next meet

Fourteen agreements, including those on cooperation in sports, healthcare and environment, were signed at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit here on Friday.

Briefing media on the outcome of the summit, attended by heads of government and state the member-countries, officials said that other than this there are the general administrative agreements.

"In total 14 decisions have been signed by the Council of the Head of States and we have on the sidelines signed some cooperation agreements between SCO and UN-specialised agencies," they said.

Joint Secretary (SCO) in the External Affairs Ministry, Madhumita Hazarika Bhagat Sarma, highlighted that discussions regarding terrorism, Afghanistan, and economic issues, especially opportunities for economic cooperation, during the summit.

She said India reiterated its long-held stand towards the peace process in Afghanistan, which it believes should be led, owned, and controlled by Kabul.

"The deliberations were divided into two portions - the first was the restricted format which is meant for the members which were followed by the expanded format in which observers joined in," the official said.

"Prime Minister Modi congratulated Putin as the next summit will be held in Russia...He also touched upon the topics of connectivity, especially the north-south corridor, Chabahar port and renewable energy. He also introduced the acronym HEALTH (during the SCO session)," Sarma added.

Expanding on the acronym, Sarma said that the 'H' in HEALTH stands for Healthcare Cooperation, 'E' for Economic Cooperation, 'A' for Alternate Energy, 'L' for Literature and Culture, 'T' for Terrorism free society and 'H' for Humanitarian Cooperation.

"The overall message was that India would like to see very positive content in the SCO process. We are ready to contribute to that and work with the SCO countries. There were also a serious of documents which were signed today," Modi was quoted as saying.

Sarma outlined that the document of the anti-narcotic strategy and the programme of action was amongst one of the documents signed today.

Commenting on the Joint Declaration issued after the summit, Hazarika said, "The declaration is a strong statement against terrorism and is endorsed by all SCO member-states."

Answering a question on the agenda of the next summit to be held in Russia, she said that Moscow would be holding 90 events.

"The baton has been passed on to Russia and they have already informed that there will be 90 events and 90 documents to highlight, as President Putin also highlighted in his speech, that they will focus again on areas like cyberterrorism which is very important to them, cooperation in IT and digitisation as well as marking 75 years of second world war celebrations amongst other areas," she said.