At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers summit, DR. S. Jaishankar, the minister of external affairs for India, met with Mukhtar Tileuberdi, the foreign minister of Kazakhstan, and held a bilateral meeting on Thursday.
Dr. Jaishankar also paid a visit to the vice prime minister of Kazakhstan. The leaders of the two countries also recognized the improvements in bilateral relations that had been made since their previous meeting at the third India-Central Asia Dialogue summit, held in New Delhi in 2021.
India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar tweeted this, “Began my SCO visit with a bilateral meeting with DPM and FM Mukhtar Tileuberdi of Kazakhstan.”
In the tweet he further mentioned that, “The current situation calls for stronger Indo-Kazakh cooperation across all domains.” See here.
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Previously, Kazakhstan’s foreign minister, Tileuberdi, visited India last year to take part in the third conference of the India-Central Asia Dialogue, which was chaired by DR. Jaishankar.
During the course of the conversation, Tileuberdi made the observation that during the preceding three decades, Kazakhstan and India had successfully and rapidly created partnerships across the board in their areas of cooperation.
He emphasized how successfully they have worked together in the fields of politics, economy, science, and technology, along with culture and humanitarianism.
Furthermore, Dr. Jaishankar is scheduled to share the same table with his Pakistani counterpart, Bilawal Bhutto, at the SCO Foreign Ministers conference.
It is worth noting that Bilawal Bhutto would meet EAM Jaishankar for the first time after the establishment of the new coalition government in Islamabad, which consists of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), led by Shehbaz Sharif.
According to a press release from the MEA, Vladimir Norov, the Republic of Uzbekistan’s acting foreign affairs minister, reportedly asked Jaishankar to attend the conference.
The ongoing conference is thought to be very crucial given the fact that the Foreign Ministers are expected to discuss and make plans for the upcoming Council of Heads of State meeting, which is set to take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on September 15–16, 2022.
The discussion would evaluate continued collaboration in the SCO Organization’s expansion and exchange viewpoints on regional and global trends of shared interest, according to the press release.
China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, will also attend the conference.
Media reports state that, “the two had previously met in Bali, where they had a lengthy conversation on the sidelines of a meeting of the G20 foreign ministers on July 7, during which the situation in eastern Ladakh played a significant role.”
If the bilateral talks succeed, then the meeting between Jaishankar and Wang might also open the door for a potential meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Both of these prominent leaders are anticipated to attend the SCO summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on September 15 and 16.
According to a statement released by the Ministry of External Affairs, the 20th Meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG) was held on November 25, 2021, in Nur-Sultan via video conference under the Chairmanship of Kazakhstan, and Dr. Jaishankar represented India in the meeting.
This year, Uzbekistan will preside over the SCO meeting and organize all the events related to the two-decade-old organization, which includes Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and four Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia are the four observer states of SCO.
On September 17, 2021, Tajikistan stepped down as the organization’s chairman and was replaced by Uzbekistan.
The SCO summit is scheduled to be held in India next year.
