India to host SCO-National Security Advisors meeting today; Pakistan, China to join virtually

On Wednesday, India, as the current chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), will host a meeting of National Security Advisors (NSA) and top officials in New Delhi. Pakistan and China are likely to participate virtually in the SCO-NSA meeting. The meeting will begin with remarks from National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was founded in 2001 and currently has eight member countries: India, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. India assumed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Chairship for 2023 in 2022.

According to a statement by the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, will attend the annual meeting of the secretaries of security councils of SCO member states in New Delhi on Wednesday, a Russian embassy official confirmed to ANI.

On June 9, 2017, India was admitted as a full member of the SCO. Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia are the four Observer States, and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey are the six dialogue partners.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a major regional powerhouse founded more than two decades ago with the goal of promoting economic, political, and military cooperation among its member countries.

The SCO’s eight member countries account for approximately 42% of the global population and 25% of the global GDP. Pakistan also attended a meeting of the heads of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) tourism administrations earlier this month in Kashi.

Kazakhstan’s Vice Minister of Culture and Sports Yerzhan Yerkinbayev, China’s Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Lu Ying Chuan, Kyrgyzstan’s Deputy Minister of Culture, Information, Sports, and Youth Policy Samat Bekturovich Shatmanov, and Uzbekistan’s First Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Azamov Ulugbek Axmatovich attended the meeting of the SCO tourism administrations.

Meanwhile, according to a press release from the Tourism Ministry, Vladimir Evgenyvich Ilyichev, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Economic Development, Russia, Muminzod Kamoliddin, Chairman of the Tourism Development Committee, Tajikistan, and Aun Chaudhry, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Tourism and Sports, Pakistan, virtually participated in the SCO meeting held in Kashi earlier this month.

While the SCO summit is scheduled to take place in Goa this summer, India is hosting a number of events in the run-up to it. Notably, the next important SCO meeting will be the defence ministers’ meeting on April 27-29 in Delhi.