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PM Modi reaches Uzbekistan, will meet Putin tomorrow: 10 points

September 15, 2022
Bharat Times

PM Modi is likely to meet Vladimir Putin in Uzbekistan. (file)

New Delhi:
Trade and geopolitics will be on the agenda when Prime Minister Narendra Modi holds a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a regional summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on Friday.

Here are the 10 latest developments from this story:

  1. Mr. Putin and PM Modi will attend the two-day 22nd meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) starting Thursday.

  2. This is the bloc’s first in-person summit in two years, allaying COVID fears and providing a rare opportunity for all its eight Heads of State to meet on the spot to interact face-to-face. Global and regional issues of common concern.

  3. “Russian President Putin is going to attend the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. PM Modi is also going. We have already announced that there will be several meetings in Samarkand including PM Modi,” Russian Ambassador to India Denis Alipov said. told news agency ANI.

  4. Earlier, the official Russian news agency TASS quoted President’s aide Yuri Ushakov as saying, “There will also be talks with Modi on the international agenda, the sides will discuss issues of strategic stability, the situation in the Asia Pacific region and, of course, Cooperation in major multilateral formats like United Nations, G20 and SCO.

  5. “This is especially important, because in December India will chair the UN Security Council and in 2023 India will lead the SCO and also chair the G20,” Ushakov told reporters on Tuesday.

  6. The two leaders spoke to each other in July and reviewed the implementation of decisions taken during President Putin’s visit to India in December 2021. Earlier, PM Modi and Mr Putin spoke on the phone after Russia’s attack on Ukraine on 24 February.

  7. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday left for Samarkand, tweeting, “Departure for Samarkand, Uzbekistan to attend the SCO Summit, which will witness an exchange of views on a wide range of regional and global issues “

  8. In his pre-departure statement, PM Modi said that he was looking forward to exchanging views on topical regional and international issues as well as expanding and deepening multi-faceted and mutually beneficial cooperation within the grouping.

  9. The Beijing-headquartered SCO is an eight-member economic and security bloc comprising China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan.

  10. The possibility of bilateral meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Putin and Pakistan Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif will be closely watched among the leaders attending the SCO summit in person for the first time since 2019.