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Targeting Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tuesday that some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument in sync with their policy and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) must not hesitate to criticise such countries.
Addressing the SCO leaders’ summit, he said terrorism has become a threat to regional and global peace and there is a need for decisive action to deal with it. PM Modi added that there cannot be “double standards” to tackle such a serious issue. He further said that they must expand mutual cooperation to deal with terror financing.
On connectivity initiatives in the region, he said that such efforts must respect territorial integrity and sovereignty. Food, fuel and fertiliser crisis are challenges and the SCO should come together to tackle this, Modi underlined.
The PM on Tuesday hosted the virtual summit of the SCO, which was attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, among others.
Earlier, the summit was scheduled to take place in-person in New Delhi, but the plan was changed early in June. The previous SCO summit took place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan in September last year.
India’s association with the SCO began in 2005 as an Observer country. It became a full Member State of the organisation at the Astana Summit in 2017 which was a “historic moment” in India’s engagement with SCO, according to officials.
In the past six years, India has played a “very active and constructive role” in all spheres of activities of the SCO, officials said.
The theme of India’s Presidency of SCO – SECURE – is derived from an acronym given by PM Narendra Modi at the 2018 Qingdao SCO Summit. “It stands for – S: Security, E: Economic development, C: Connectivity, U: Unity, R: Respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity and E: Environmental protection,” the official said.
During its presidency, India created five new pillars and focus areas of cooperation in SCO, these are Startups and Innovation, Traditional Medicine, Digital Inclusion, Youth Empowerment and Shared Buddhist Heritage. “Two new mechanisms in SCO, Special Working Group on Startups & Innovation and Experts Working Group on Traditional Medicine, were created on India’s initiative. We intend to contribute substantially in both these areas,” the official said.
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