Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Tashkent tomorrow to have a crucial meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, on the very same day the plenary of the Nuclear Suppliers Group at Seoul starts deliberations on India’s bid for the membership of the elite club.
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After the SCO summit, Putin will go on an official visit to China where he will have talks with that country’s leaders on June 25 on the entire spectrum of issues of the bilateral and worldwide agenda.
India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit. “Issues of harmonization of Eurasia’s integration projects, including the Eurasian Economic Union and the economic belt Silk Road, will be considered separately”, Ushakov said, adding that the summit participants would also discuss the involvement of the ASEAN countries in this partnership.
Emphasising that India’s entry into the four multilateral export control regimes, including NSG, will “bolster worldwide efforts on combating proliferation”, the French foreign ministry on Wednesday called on the members to “take a positive decision”. Cooperation on the part of the security is part of the SCO as India will also be a member of the Regional Ant-Terrorism Structure, she said. China on Tuesday asserted that the door is always open for discussion and it is only raising the procedural questions when it comes to India’s NSG membership bid. At present SCO is a group of six countries, including Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The grouping was formed in 2001 with a view to having a common regional agenda between the Eurasian countries on matters related to terrorism and security. “We have been working with other members of SCO on several other fields”, Mehta said. The SCO summit kicks off with a gala, dinner and a cultural programme.
However, she did not confirm whether Modi will also be meeting his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Tashkent.
Asked at the media briefing whether the PM will discuss the NSG issue with Xi, Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs Sujata Mehta refused to give a direct answer but said usually a “full review” of the bilateral ties takes place on such occasions.
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