SCO SUMMIT, BISHKEK

June 15, 2019

Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek, his first multilateral engagement post his re-election.

Key highlights of the summit:

The Bishkek Declaration of the SCO Heads of State Council condemned terrorism in all “forms and manifestations”.
PM Narendra Modi asked the member states to try coordinated action against international terrorism under the SCO-Regional Anti Terrorist Structure (RATS).
SCO declared that the Uzbekistan is expected to host a Ministerial Meeting of the Eighth Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA VIII) in Tashkent in the second half of 2019.
The summit also signed a document titled ‘Roadmap for Further Action of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group’.
A separate MoU was signed for establishment of Astana International Financial Centre.
Apart from that the other agreements were on sports, mass media, coordination of humanitarian affairs, tourism, healthcare.
PM Narendra Modi and his Pakistan counterpart Imran Khan exchanged greetings during the SCO summit. This informal exchange, though brief, is the first since the Pulwama terror attack, which led to a dramatic escalation of tensions between the two countries.