• Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar will represent India at the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Astana next week as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to skip it.

• PM Modi is set to visit Russia from July 8 to 9 in his first trip to that country in nearly five years. 

• After concluding the visit to Russia, he is likely to travel to Austria on July 9 on a two-day trip.

• The SCO summit to be held on July 3 and 4 is expected to focus on the regional security situation and ways to boost connectivity and trade.

What is the SCO?

• The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is an inter-governmental organisation founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001. It was founded by the presidents of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

• These countries, except for Uzbekistan, had been members of the Shanghai Five group, formed on April 26, 1996 with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions.

• The SCO Charter was signed during the St Petersburg heads of state meeting in June 2002 and entered into force on September 19, 2003. This is the fundamental statutory document which outlines the organisation’s goals and principles, as well as its structure and core activities.

• The Heads of State Council (HSC) is the supreme decision-making body in the SCO. It meets once a year and adopts decisions and guidelines on all important matters of the organisation. 

• The SCO is an influential economic and security bloc and has emerged as one of the largest transregional international organisations.

Members of SCO

• The SCO currently comprises nine member states (China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan). 

• Iran became a permanent member in July 2023.

• The decision to admit Iran was made in Dushanbe summit in 2021 and Belarus has submitted its application.

• This is the first expansion of the SCO after India and Pakistan were admitted to the grouping in 2017.

• Other observer states interested in acceding to full membership are Afghanistan and Mongolia. 

• There are 14 dialogue partners — Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bahrain, Egypt, Cambodia, Qatar, Kuwait, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Sri Lanka.

• India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 summit. On June 9, 2017, at the historic summit in Astana, India and Pakistan officially joined the SCO as full-fledged members.

• The SCO has two permanent bodies — the SCO Secretariat in Beijing and Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent. 

• The chairmanship of the SCO is by rotation for a year by the Member States.

The SCO’s main goals are:

• Strengthening mutual trust and neighbourliness among the Member States.

• Promoting their effective cooperation in politics, trade, economy, research, technology, culture, education, energy, transport, tourism, environmental protection and other areas.

• Making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region.

• Moving towards the establishment of a democratic, fair and rational new international political and economic order.

India and the SCO

• India was made an observer at the July 2005 Astana Summit and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping, which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.

• India and Pakistan became its permanent members in 2017.

• India has shown keen interest in deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS), which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)