Jaishankar to participate in SCO meet in Uzbekistan on July 28-29

External affairs minister S Jaishankar will visit Uzbekistan during July 28-29 to participate in a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) council of foreign ministers.

The meet will discuss preparations for the upcoming meeting of the SCO council of heads of state in Samarkand during September 15-16, the external affairs ministry said.

The foreign ministers will review ongoing cooperation for expansion of the SCO organisation and exchange ideas on regional and global developments of common concern, the ministry said.

Jaishankar, who is visiting at the invitation of Uzbekistan’s acting foreign minister Vladimir Norov, is likely to meet his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the margins of the SCO meet. If the meeting goes ahead, this will be the second time this month that Jaishankar and Wang will hold talks on the sidelines of a multilateral event.

However, there is little optimism in New Delhi for any breakthrough or forward movement on the two-year-old military standoff on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), given the positions adopted by both sides.

Jaishankar and Wang had held talks on the margins of a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Indonesia on July 7. There has been no official announcement from either side about a meeting in Tashkent, though people familiar with the matter said a bilateral meeting between the two ministers isn’t being ruled out. Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari too will attend the SCO meeting. There was no word on a possible meeting between the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers.