India stands stern at SCO Summit as it did not mention the Pahalgam terror attack
The SCO Tianjin Summit 2025 is the 25th Heads of State Council meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), being held in the autumn of 2025 in Tianjin, People's Republic of China. It is the fifth time that China hosts the annual SCO summit.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a Eurasian political, economic, international security and defence organization of ten member states. It was established in 2001 by the People's Republic of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In June 2017, it expanded to eight states, with India and Pakistan. Iran joined the group in July 2023, and Belarus in July 2024. Several countries are engaged as observers or dialogue partners. It is the world's largest regional organization in terms of geographic scope and population, covering approximately 24% of the area of world (65% of Eurasia)[4] and 42% of the world population.
The SCO is the successor to the Shanghai Five, formed in 1996 between China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. In June 2001, the leaders of these nations and Uzbekistan met in Shanghai to announce a new organization with deeper political and economic cooperation. The SCO is governed by the Heads of State Council (HSC), its supreme decision-making body, which meets once a year. The organization also contains the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS).
Today at
Shanghai, sending a stern message to India's neighbours, Defence Minister
Rajnath Singh refused to sign a joint statement at the SCO meet because it did not mention the Pahalgam
terror attack that claimed 26 innocent lives and did not reflect India's strong
position on terror. While skipping any mention of Pahalgam, the document
mentioned Balochistan, tacitly accusing India of creating unrest there.
Pahalgam's exclusion from the document appears to have been done at Pakistan's
behest as its all-weather ally, China, holds the Chair now.
India has consistently trashed Pakistan's allegations about its involvement in Balochistan and said Islamabad must look within and stop backing terror instead of making wild allegations. "India is not satisfied with the language of the joint document. There was no mention of the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, there was mention of the incidents that happened in Pakistan, so India refused to sign the joint declaration, and there is no joint communique either," a Defence Ministry source said.
Mr Singh is currently in China's Qingdao to attend the SCO Defence Ministers' meeting. Addressing the summit, the Defence Minister called upon SCO members to unite to eliminate terrorism for collective safety and security. He said the biggest challenges faced by the region are related to peace, security and trust deficit, with radicalisation, extremism and terrorism being the root cause of these problems. "Peace and prosperity cannot co-exist with terrorism and proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the hands of non-state actors and terror groups. Dealing with these challenges requires decisive action. It is imperative that those who sponsor, nurture and utilise terrorism for their narrow and selfish ends must bear the consequences. Some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument of policy and provide shelter to terrorists. There should be no place for such double standards. SCO should not hesitate to criticise such nations," Mr Singh, taking in a veiled swipe at Pakistan.
Referring to the Pahalgam terror attack, he said India had exercised its right to defend against terrorism and pre-empt as well as deter further cross-border attacks. "During the Pahalgam terror attack, victims were shot after they were profiled on religious identity. The Resistance Front, a proxy of UN-designated terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) claimed responsibility for the attack. The pattern of Pahalgam attack matches with LeT's previous terror attacks in India. India's zero tolerance for terrorism was demonstrated through its actions. It includes our right to defend ourselves against terrorism. We have shown that epicentres of terrorism are no longer safe and we will not hesitate to target them," he said. He stressed the need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of terror and to bring them to justice. He termed any and every act of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable. SCO members, he said, must condemn this evil unequivocally.
The Defence
Minister's refusal to sign the joint statement reflects India's stern stand
against terror now and falls in line with the global messaging in the aftermath
of Operation Sindoor. Eight delegations were sent abroad to articulate New
Delhi's stand on terror and how it plans to tackle it going forward.
26.6.2025
No comments:
Post a Comment