In a rebuke to Pakistan, Russia backs India at SCO

Russia supported India at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) forum on Thursday, when Islamabad tried to attack New Delhi. At the SCO National Security Advisor-level virtual meet, the Imran Khan government’s NSA used in his background a map of Pakistan that violated the territorial integrity of India. New Delhi strongly protested against this act.

According to sources, at the SCO-NSA meet, Russia backed India, saying that bilateral matters should not be raised at multilateral forums like the SCO. The Russian Deputy Envoy to Delhi, Roman N. Babushkin, in response to a question by an Indian international news channel, said, “This is a part of the SCO charter and the SCO basic documents not to bring the bilateral issue into the agenda. It has been made clear to all members states that it should be avoided…for the sake of the progress of multilateral cooperation.”

Earlier, PM Modi had also raised the matter at the SCO head-of-state meeting, saying, “It is unfortunate that many attempts are being made to unnecessarily bring bilateral issues into the SCO agenda. This is a violation of SCO charter and Shanghai spirit.”

PM Modi had said that India firmly believed in “regional peace, security and prosperity and raising voice against terrorism, smuggling of illegal weapons, drugs and money-laundering”.

India will be hosting SCO heads of state in a virtual meet on 30 November. The meeting’s agenda is to focus on economic cooperation among the SCO countries even as India-China remains locked in a stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh.

This year was the third SCO meeting that India participated in after becoming a full member in 2017. The meeting, chaired by Russia President Vladimir Putin, was attended by Modi, Imran Khan and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

With agency inputs