Kamal Ghorui
New Delhi: Amid efforts to ramp up bilateral cooperation, which followed the recent improvement in ties, India and China held their first Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) bilateral consultations on April 16-17.According to the MEA, the two sides exchanged views on implementation of SCO leaders’ decisions, and the future course of the organisation. Both sides agreed to continue and consolidate mutual cooperation and consultations in SCO matters, govt said.Both countries have continued to enhance cooperation in multilateral forums like Brics and SCO, after they managed to resolve the military standoff in eastern Ladakh in 2024. While PM Narendra Modi travelled to China last year for the SCO summit, Beijing has pledged support for India’s ongoing Brics presidency.Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi is likely to visit India for the Brics foreign ministers’ meeting on May 14-15 and President Xi Jinping too is expected to travel to India in Sept for the summit.“Both delegations jointly called on secretary (west) Sibi George to review cooperation within the SCO framework, including in the areas of security, trade, connectivity and people-to-people ties,” the MEA said in its statement, adding that India and China agreed to continue bilateral consultations in future.India attaches high importance to its membership of the SCO, maintaining that the Eurasian group’s original objective was to combat terrorism, radicalisation and extremism. India also sees SCO as important for regional connectivity, as long as such initiatives uphold the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, as enshrined in the SCO charter. Connectivity that bypasses sovereignty ultimately loses both trust and meaning, PM Modi had said last year while addressing the summit in Tianjin.
