China welcomes PM Modi's planned visit to attend SCO summit this month

PM Modi had earlier travelled to China in 2019. File Pic/AFP

China on Friday welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's planned visit to the Tianjin summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to be held later this month, reported the PTI.

After a gap of over seven years, PM Modi is expected to travel to China later this month to attend the annual summit of the SCO, people familiar with the matter in Delhi said this week.

IN PHOTOS: NSA Ajit Doval hold talks with Russian President Putin in Moscow

4 months agoPHOTO GALLERY

China welcomes Prime Minister Modi for the SCO Tianjin Summit, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said while answering a query on reports that PM Modi's visit to China to attend the Tianjin summit, according to the PTI.

"We believe that with the concerted effort of all parties, the Tianjin summit will be a gathering of solidarity, friendship and fruitful results, and the SCO will enter a new stage of high-quality development featuring greater solidarity, coordination, dynamism and productiveness," he said.

China will host the SCO Summit in Tianjin from August 31 to September 1.

Leaders of over 20 countries, including all member states of the SCO and heads of 10 international organisations, will attend relevant events, Guo said.

The SCO Tianjin Summit will be the largest summit in scale since the establishment of the SCO, he said.

PM Modi had earlier travelled to China in 2019. He also held a meeting with the Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Russia's Kazan in 2024.

The breakthrough in bilateral talks, first after the Galwan Valley face-off between the soldiers of the two countries at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in June 2020, was made possible after New Delhi and Beijing reached an agreement on patrolling along the nearly 3500-km Line of Actual Control (LAC) to end the four-year-long border confrontation, the IANS reported.

In July, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar's visited China to attend the Meeting of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers in Tianjin. He also held discussions with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the event. He also called on Chinese President Xi Jinping along with his fellow SCO Foreign Ministers.

Earlier in June, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited China to attend the SCO Defence Ministers Meeting. India had refused to endorse the joint declaration at the SCO Defence Ministers' meeting, citing the exclusion of concerns around terrorism as a key reason.

India stated that it wanted concerns about terrorism reflected in the document, which was not acceptable to one particular country; therefore, the statement was not adopted. During his visit, Singh met his Chinese counterpart Admiral Don Jun and the two leaders had "constructive and forward looking exchange of views on issues related to bilateral ties.

National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval also visited China to attend the 20th meeting of the Security Council Secretaries of the SCO Member States in Beijing. In his intervention at the meeting, he highlighted the need to shun double standards in the fight against terrorism and take decisive actions against UN-proscribed terrorists and entities like LeT, JeM and their proxies and dismantle their terror eco-systems.

The SCO is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation established in Shanghai on June 15, 2001. The member states of SCO include India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus.

(with PTI and IANS inputs)