Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here on Thursday to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit and held his first bilateral meeting with Kazakhistan President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Pakistan and India will hold the ranks of current members Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan.
"There was neither any request from their side nor any such proposal from our side", MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said on the possibility of the two prime ministers meeting at Astana during the two-day summit, reported Economic Times. Modi is likely to pitch for a concerted global action plan to contain terrorism at the summit which is also being attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Given the increasingly acrimonious India-Pakistan relationship, it would be interesting to see the kind of "anti-terror" collaboration between them under the SCO umbrella.
China said in November it was willing to consider any application from NATO-member Turkey to join the SCO, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country could join.
In his address, Modi said SCO could also devote attention towards climate change.
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Besides the SCO Summit, Kazakhstan is also hosting the International Expo 2017, in which more than 100 countries including Pakistan are participating.
Li Xing pointed out that the two countries' membership in the SCO will help the organization act better as a platform to link the Belt and Road initiative.
He said India launched the process of full membership of the SCO in the Tashkent meeting past year. He said trade, connectivity, energy, banking and fight against terrorism are the main areas of cooperation.
Sources revealed that issues related to terrorism, border fencing and regional security were discussed between Ghani and Sharif.
India abstained from the Summit to highlight its concerns over the Dollars 50 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the pet project of Xi, and passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
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