Modi to visit Kazakhstan to attend SCO Summit

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Thursday leave for Astana, in Kazakhstan, to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India is expected to be granted full membership of the Eurasian political, economic and military bloc. India, which has been an observer to the SCO since 2005, was informed in the 2015 Summit in Ufa, Russia, that it would be granted full membership and the process for this started from the 2016 Summit in Tashkent. With Pakistan also expected to be granted full membership at the Astana Summit, the two South Asian neighbours are going to be the seventh and eighth members of the SCO after China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The prime minister is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit at Kazakhstan's capital city of Astana. However, there is no meeting scheduled between Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif. Apart from China, there is also the possibility of a meeting between India and Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is the largest supplier of uranium to India. G.V. Srinivas, Joint Secretary (Eurasia) in the Ministry of External Affairs, said in a media briefing here that India has signed 38 documents of accession to become a member of the bloc. Asked what India would gain by becoming a full member of the SCO, he said the countries of the group are from a resource-rich region that has been historically linked to India. "There are broadly two legs of collaboration which are being pursued in the SCO platform," Srinivas said. "One is trade, economy, connectivity, energy, transport, banking, that set of issues," he said. "The second thing is, of course, the fight against terrorism." He said that while the SCO Secretariat is in Beijing, there is a sub-body called Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) that has its office in Tashkent. Founded in 2001, the SCO currently has six members--- China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, and is headquartered in Chinese capital of Beijing. During Modi's visit to St Petersburg earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin had conveyed to India about its admission as a full member of the SCO. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay stated that SCO will also be an institutional forum through which India can engage with Afghanistan's neighbours. Baglay also said that Modi will hold bilateral meetings with visiting leaders on the sidelines of the Summit but these will be finalised only after the Prime Minister reaches Astana. Asked specifically if there will be a bilateral meeting between Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif, the spokesperson said there has been no such request from either side. While in Astana, the Prime Minister will also attend inauguration of the World Exposition which Kazakhstan is hosting this year. After attending the SCO Summit on Friday, Modi will be back in India early on Saturday morning.