Shanghai Spirit to mend India-Pakistan ties

Beijing hosted the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Security Council Secretaries meeting on May 21-22 to fine-tune the language for the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking and transnational crimes. The agreed script may find an important place in the declaration expected to be adopted by the SCO summit to be held in Qingdao, Shandong province, on June 9-10. The SCO Security Council meeting, however, was only one of more than 120 events that China has hosted in run up to the 18th SCO summit, and each of them has had complexities.

Addressing the SCO Security Council secretaries on May 22, for instance, President Xi Jinping underlined how the entry of India and Pakistan into the SCO has increased its potential for cooperation. The key word was "potential" in both benefiting from, but more so, helping improve India-Pakistan ties. How this "potential" is beginning to be harnessed was visible from the bilateral meeting, on the sidelines, between India's Deputy National Security Adviser Rajinder Khanna and Pakistan's National Security Adviser Nasser Khan Janjua, although official India-Pakistan talks have remained suspended for several years because of terrorism.

Indeed, as Xi was addressing the SCO Security Council secretaries in Beijing, New Delhi and Islamabad were still jostling about whether India would send its delegation next morning for Pakistan's first ever SCO anti-terrorism meeting on May 23-25. As its first SCO event after becoming a full member, Pakistan was hosting the Uzbekistan-based Regional Anti-Terrorism Structures dialogue with law officers of SCO member states "to discuss terrorist threats facing the region and ways and means to enhance counter-terrorism cooperation between SCO member states".