SCO Summit 2022 Updates, Full Form, Members

SCO Summit 2022

The 22nd Summit of the Council of Heads of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Member States is going to take place in the city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan.

SCO Summit 2022 Date

This SCO summit is being held from September 15 to September 16, 2022.

SCO Summit Updates

Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended events at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit on Friday, September 16. He arrived in the city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The prime minister will have meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi on the sidelines of the SCO meet. This will be the first physical meeting of SCO leaders in two years since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Issues like regional security challenges, trade, investment, and energy supplies are likely to remain on the agenda.

On the sidelines of the SCO Summit, Prime Minister Modi held informal meetings with a number of leaders on matters of mutual interest.

On terrorism, SCO agreed to work towards developing a unified list of terrorists, separatists, and extremist organizations whose activities are prohibited on the territories of the SCO member state.

Member states signed off on the Samarkand declaration of the SCO summit underlining “mutual respect for sovereignty” and “territorial integrity of States”. Interestingly, Samarkand’s declaration of the SCO summit omitted reference to the “UN Charter”, which is being seen as a departure from their previous stand.

About SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization)

Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a Eurasian political, economic, and security organization. It is the world’s largest regional organization, covering approximately 60% of the area of Eurasia, 40% of the world population, and more than 30% of the global GDP.

The SCO is the successor to the Shanghai Five. Shanghai Five is a mutual security agreement formed in 1996 between China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. SCO came into being in 2001 when the leaders of these nations and Uzbekistan met in Shanghai to go for deeper political and economic cooperation. The SCO Charter was signed on 7 July 2002 and entered into force on 19 September 2003. Its membership has since expanded to eight states. India and Pakistan became a member of SCO in 2017. Several countries are engaged as observers or dialogue partners.

The SCO is governed by the Heads of State Council which is its supreme decision-making body. The body meets once a year.
The Shanghai Five group included China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.
Shanghai Five first admitted Uzbekistan in the Shanghai Five mechanism (thus transforming it into the Shanghai Six).

In 2002, the heads of the SCO member states met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and signed the SCO Charter which outlined the organization’s purposes, principles, structures, and forms of operation.
In July 2015 in Ufa, Russia, the SCO decided to admit India and Pakistan as full members. Both were admitted as full members in 2017 at a summit in Astana.

The SCO established relations with the United Nations in 2004 (where it is an observer in the General Assembly).

SCO Summit Members

There are a total of eight members in SCO. They include- China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Iran has recently signed the MoU to become the 9th member of SCO. Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia are observer states. Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey, and Sri Lanka are dialogue partners of the organization.