India Joins SCO Coordinators’ Meeting in Islamabad, Its First in Pakistan in Nearly Two Years

The news

New Delhi and Islamabad. A year and a half after Operation Sindoor, India has sent a senior Ministry of External Affairs official to Pakistan for a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting, The Indian Express reports. India’s SCO Coordinator, Alok Dimri, an Additional Secretary in the MEA, is attending the first meeting of the SCO Council of National Coordinators (CNC) under Pakistan’s chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of State (CHS) for 2026-27, held in Islamabad from Monday to Wednesday. National coordinators are the senior officials each member appoints to manage the grouping’s day-to-day agenda and prepare its meetings. Pakistan’s Foreign Office said on Sunday that the coordinators would discuss the programme of activities under its chairmanship, preparations for upcoming SCO meetings and events, and other matters. The meeting is chaired by Pakistan’s National Coordinator for SCO, Dr M. Faisal, and attended by counterparts from member states and representatives of the SCO Secretariat. Pakistan’s theme for its term is ‘Turning Vision into Action: Connectivity, Innovation and Shared Prosperity’. The Indian delegation’s presence marks India’s participation in an SCO meeting in Pakistan after almost two years. New Delhi’s stated position is that bilateral engagement needs an environment free from terrorism, and that “terror and talks can’t go together”, especially after the Pahalgam terror attack and the military confrontation of May last year under Operation Sindoor; but it will engage Pakistan within the SCO format. Sources told the paper that India wants to engage with the SCO and that this is why the coordinator was sent. Pakistan is likely to invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the summit. On the same day, The Economic Times reports, the foreign ministers of IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa), meeting in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly, strongly condemned the killing of civilians in the April 2025 Pahalgam attack and called for concerted action against all UN-listed terrorists and entities, including Al Qaeda, ISIS/Daesh, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, other proxy groups and their facilitators. Separately, Afghanistan’s Taliban-run defence ministry claimed its forces killed 28 and wounded 32 fighters, including Daesh or ISIS extremists, who it said had crossed from Pakistan into Kamdesh district of Nuristan province with Pakistani military backing, less than a week after Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan on September 21. Pakistan had not responded. The syllabus link is GS2 on India and its neighbourhood, and on regional groupings involving India.

Static syllabus linkage

1. The SCO grew out of a border-security forum and now spans most of Eurasia. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was founded in Shanghai on 15 June 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, building on the earlier ‘Shanghai Five’ grouping. Its Charter was signed in 2002 at St. Petersburg. India and Pakistan became full members together in 2017 at the Astana summit, Iran joined in 2023 and Belarus in 2024. Its official languages are Russian and Chinese.
2. The SCO has a layered structure, from Heads of State to national coordinators. The Council of Heads of State is the highest decision-making body and meets annually; the member holding its chair hosts the summit. The Council of Heads of Government meets separately and deals mainly with economic and budgetary matters. The Council of National Coordinators handles the organisation’s current work and prepares the ministerial and summit meetings. There are two permanent bodies: the Secretariat in Beijing and the Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent.
3. India has used the SCO both to engage and to dissent. India has consistently refused to endorse SCO statements supporting China’s Belt and Road Initiative, since its flagship China–Pakistan Economic Corridor passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar attended the SCO Council of Heads of Government meeting in Islamabad in October 2024, the most senior Indian visit to Pakistan in years, while making clear he was there only for the multilateral meeting. In 2025 India declined to sign an SCO defence ministers’ joint document that did not mention Pahalgam, and the leaders’ declaration later that year did condemn the attack.
4. IBSA and the UN sanctions regime are India’s other anti-terror platforms. IBSA was formed by the Brasilia Declaration of 2003 as a trilateral dialogue forum of three large, multi-ethnic democracies from three continents, and runs the IBSA Fund for development projects in poorer countries through the UN. UN-listed terrorists are those designated under the sanctions regime of the UN Security Council committee established by Resolution 1267 (1999), covering Al Qaeda and ISIL. India has pushed since 1996 for a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism at the UN, which remains stuck over the definition of terrorism.

Why UPSC loves this

1. GS2 asks about regional groupings and India’s place in them. The syllabus lists important international institutions and regional groupings involving India. UPSC has asked whether the SCO serves India’s interests given China’s and Pakistan’s presence in it, and about India’s approach to Central Asia. This story shows the SCO’s specific value to India: a channel to Pakistan that does not count as bilateral dialogue.
2. India–Pakistan relations are a recurring GS2 and interview theme. Questions have asked about cross-border terrorism as the main obstacle to normal ties and about the role of multilateral forums in managing adversarial relations. The contrast between frozen bilateral ties and continued SCO participation is exactly the kind of nuance examiners reward.
3. Prelims tests SCO structure and membership. Prelims has asked about SCO membership and the location of RATS. The difference between the Council of Heads of State, the Council of Heads of Government and the Council of National Coordinators is a natural question.

Analysis

1. Sending a coordinator, not a minister, is a calibrated signal. An Additional Secretary attending a coordinators’ meeting is the lowest level at which India can show up without being absent. It keeps India inside the SCO’s agenda-setting at a time when Pakistan holds the chair and could otherwise shape the programme without Indian input. It also avoids any photograph that could be read as bilateral thaw. The level of the delegation to later ministerial meetings, and whether the Prime Minister accepts an invitation to the summit, will be the real indicators of India’s intent.
2. Multilateral engagement lets India separate the SCO from Pakistan. India’s interest in the SCO lies in Central Asia, Russia, energy and counter-terrorism cooperation through RATS, none of which should be surrendered because Pakistan chairs the grouping this year. Boycotting would hand Pakistan and China the narrative that India is the obstacle to regional cooperation. The counter-view is that attending in Islamabad lends legitimacy to Pakistan’s chairmanship while it faces accusations of terrorism from both India and Afghanistan. India’s answer is that attendance is a duty to the organisation, not a concession to the host.
3. The SCO summit invitation will test the terror-and-talks doctrine. If Pakistan formally invites Mr. Modi, India faces a choice between not going, sending a lower-level representative, or attending virtually, as members have done before. Each option has a cost: absence weakens India’s voice in the declaration, while attendance may be read domestically as softening after Pahalgam. The likely course, based on India’s past practice, is representation by a minister and insistence that the declaration condemn cross-border terrorism, making the text rather than the attendance the contest.
4. The Taliban’s accusation strengthens India’s case but should not be used uncritically. The Afghan defence ministry’s claim that Pakistan backed ISIS fighters crossing into Nuristan is a direct accusation of state involvement from a neighbour that Pakistan once treated as its client. It fits India’s long-standing argument that Pakistan uses militant proxies. But the claim is unverified, comes amid open hostility after Pakistani airstrikes on September 21, and the Taliban have their own record with militant groups. India gains more by using multilateral statements like IBSA’s, which name UN-listed groups, than by amplifying one side’s battlefield claims.
5. IBSA’s condemnation shows the value of middle-power coalitions. Brazil and South Africa are also BRICS members and do not always share India’s view on Pakistan. Their joint condemnation of Pahalgam and naming of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad more than a year after the attack keeps the issue on the Global South’s agenda. It also shows India can get language on terrorism from democracies of the South without depending on Western capitals.

Administrator's brainstorm