EAM Jaishankar holds talks with SCO Secretary General

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday held talks with SCO Secretary General Zhang Ming with a focus on overall agenda of the grouping.

The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) in this beach resort.

India is holding the conclave ahead of the annual summit of the grouping in July.

”Started my meetings at SCO CFM with a productive interaction with Secretary General Zhang Ming. Appreciate his support for India’s SCO Presidency,” Jaishankar tweeted.

”Indian presidency is driven by a commitment to SECURE SCO. Its key focus areas are startups, traditional medicine, youth empowerment, buddhist heritage and science & technology.Looking forward to a successful CFM in Goa,” he said.

At the conclave, the foreign ministers will deliberate on overall challenges facing the region in the backdrop of the current geo-political turmoil and the state of bilateral ties between member nations would not impact the discussions.

The SCO is an influential economic and security bloc and has emerged as one of the largest trans-regional international organisations.

The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India and Pakistan became its permanent members in 2017.

India was made an observer at the SCO in 2005 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 has shown a 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.