Indian Defence Minister will visit China to attend SCO’s defence minister meeting

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will be in China next week for a 2-day visit to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation or SCO’s defence minister meeting. The meeting is happening in Qingdao, and will see the participation of foreign ministers of other SCO member states as well.

SCO is a major grouping of 10 countries-China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan, Iran, Belarus- that focuses on issues like counter terror, connectivity etc.

China is the host of the grouping for this year and will be also hosting the defence minister meeting in July and summit in September.

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to hold bilateral meetings with a number of his counterparts, including the Chinese Defence Minister Admiral Dong Jun who is the host, Russian Defence minister and Central Asian counterparts.

No meeting with Pakistani defence minister will take place in Qingdao.