The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday met the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, immediately after arriving in Astana. The PM will be attending the two day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. The two leaders discussed various ways to expand bilateral ties.
On June 9, the PM will also be present at the inauguration of the Astana Expo. This expo has the theme of ‘Future Energy’ for 2017. Before leaving for Kazakhstan, the PM wrote on Facebook, “At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full Member of the SCO upon which SCO will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of global GDP. We launched the process of full membership in Tashkent meeting of the SCO last year. I look forward to deepening India’s association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter terrorism cooperation, among other things.”
It has been reported Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will also be attending the summit. The two PMs are set to attend a banquet that will be hosted by Nazarbayev. It is yet to be seen if these two will hold any meetings as the relations between India and pakistan have worsened over the last few years.
This summit is important for India as it will be formally inducted into the six nation group, which includes China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan– India and Pakistan will be the seventh and eighth members of the SCO summit.
Amidst growing unrest between China and India, the Indian PM, Mr. Modi, is also expected to meet the Chinese President Xi Jinping. This meet will be on the sidelines of the summit. The main issues that created a rift between the countries were the China Pakistan Economic Corridor and the membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group. It is unclear if these issues will be addressed during this meet.
