India, Pakistan join Russia and China-led security bloc
astana — Asian rivals India and Pakistan on Friday formally joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a security bloc spearheaded by China and Russia, despite bilateral tensions bubbling over Kashmir.
Leaders of the largely symbolic body — including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping — formally signed off on the sub-continent duo’s accession at the annual SCO summit in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana.
Modi on Friday hailed India’s accession as a “landmark moment in the journey of the SCO” and pledged India would play a “constructive and active role” in the organisation that also includes exSoviet states Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Sharif thanked the founding members for their “staunch support” for his country’s entry into the organisation, which he hailed as “an anchor of stability in the region”.
But both Moscow and Beijing expressed optimism that the two neighbours’ entry into the SCO could strengthen prospects for peace across the region.
Founded in 1996, the SCO is viewed as a vehicle for managing competing Chinese and Russia political, economic and military interests in the strategic region.
China is championing ambitious infrastructure projects, including land and sea links touted as a revival of the ancient Silk Road trade route.
Russia, in turn, has focused on broadening its Eurasian Economic Union integration project involving former Soviet allies.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday told the Indian prime minister that the two countries should work to “appropriately” manage their differences, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement online.
“(China and India) should strengthen multilateral communication and consultation, and appropriately control and manage differences and sensitive issues,” Xi said, according to the post.
Xi also congratulated India on becoming an official member state of the SCO security bloc, jointly led by Russia and China.
The two leaders meet in Astana, Kazakhstan on the sidelines of a summit for the eight country bloc, which also includes nearly a dozen other states as partners or observer states. Modi thanked Xi for supporting India to join the SCO and said that the two countries should respect each others core interests and appropriately manage differences, according to the Chinese foreign ministry post. No comment was immediately available from the Indian delegation.
Xi also said that China and India should increase trade and investment cooperation to ensure that the two countries were able to enjoy more “early stage profits” from large scale projects in infrastructure and industry.
“Substantive progress” on the China-India-Bangladesh-Myanmar project should also be promoted,
(China and India) should strengthen multilateral communication and consultation, and appropriately control and manage differences and sensitive issues. Xi Jinping, Chinese President
Xi said, referring to a project to increase connectivity and trade between the four countries.
India has expressed unease over China’s “Silk Road” initiative to expand trade links between China and Eurasia, and did not send government officials from Delhi to attend a summit of leaders and ministers in Beijing in May.
A visit in April by Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who Beijing brands a separatist, to a region controlled by India but claimed by China stoked tensions between the two countries.
The Indian government has since taken steps to cool tensions, rejecting an Australian request to take part in joint naval exercises with the United States and Japan last month to avoid agonising China. — AFP, Reuters