Rajnath refuses to sign SCO communique over exclusion of Pahalgam attack

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh attends an SCO meeting in China, delivers a speech but doesn't sign a statement because of the issue, sources say

Defence Minister Rajanth Singh on Thursday refused to sign a joint communique of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) at a meeting of its defence ministers in Qingdao, China, because it had omitted the Pahalgam terror attack and had not explicitly addressed India’s concern over Pakistan-backed cross-border terrorism.

 

While Singh demanded including the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, in which terrorists killed 26 people, in the communique, the Pakistani delegation insisted on the document having a paragraph on militant activities in Balochistan.

 

Pakistan had in the past accused India of fomenting militancy in Balochistan.

 

“The SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting took place in China. We understand that the member countries could not reach a consensus on certain issues and hence the document could not be finalised,” Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said here.

 

 

“India wanted concerns reflected in the document, which was not acceptable to a particular country. As such the joint statement was not adopted,” Jaiswal said. 

 

The SCO operates under the framework of consensus, and Singh’s refusal to endorse the document resulted in the SCO defence ministers’ conclave in this Chinese port city ending without a joint communique.

 

India became a full member of the SCO in 2017. Its other members include Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, and Belarus.

 

Singh is on a two-day visit to China, the first by an Indian defence minister since the Galwan River valley clash in 2020.

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had skipped the previous SCO summit in 2024, in Astana. China will host this year’s SCO summit in Tianjin.

 

Expectations are that Modi will attend it, given India and China’s recent efforts at improving their ties after he and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Russia in October. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on June 23 on the sidelines of a meeting of the security-council secretaries of the SCO.

 

Singh separately met Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov in Qingdao, and said in a social media post that the talks would boost Russia-India ties.

 

In his address at the conclave, Singh took a swipe at Pakistan for its relentless support to cross-border terrorism and underlined the need to bring “perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of terrorism to justice”. 

 

“Some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument of policy and provide shelter to terrorists. There should be no place for such double standards. The SCO should not hesitate to criticise such nations,” he said.

 

The defence minister, who arrived in Qingdao on Wednesday, laid down the broad contours of India’s “transitional shift” in its policy against terrorism and urged the SCO member nations to unite in combating and shun “double standards”.

 

“Dealing with these challenges requires decisive action. It is imperative that those who sponsor, nurture, and utilise terrorism for their narrow and selfish ends must bear the consequences,” he said. Singh also said that the pattern of the Pahalgam terror attack matched Lashkar-e-Taiba’s previous terror attacks in India.

 

“During the Pahalgam terror attack, victims were shot after they were profiled on religious identity. The Resistance Front, a proxy of United Nations-designated terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba claimed responsibility for the attack,” he said.

 

“The joint statement of the Council of SCO Heads of State on ‘Countering Radicalisation leading to Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism’ issued during India’s chairmanship symbolises our shared commitment,” he stated.  (With inputs from PTI)