This happened at the SCO summit in the Uzbekistan Capital, which was attended by External Affairs Minister S M Krishna. However, the criteria for new members were not made public. Pakistan and Iran, both SCO observers, are also keen to join the grouping, although there is no clarity on the rules pertaining to UN sanctions which may bar Iran from joining the group.
India, which has been an observer of the SCO since 2005, has always been keen in SCO’s regional anti-terror mechanism and the contact group on Afghanistan.
New Delhi, even as an observer, has been sending Cabinet rank ministers for taking part in the SCO meeting. However, last year, it decided to elevate the level of engagement as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attended the summit in Ekaterinberg in Russia.
Now, as the Tashkent summit decided to pave the way for India’s entry into the grouping, New Delhi will be getting in touch with the SCO secretariat in Shanghai to take forward the process of membership.
As a full member, India will be able to cooperate on the issues of regional security, economic development and the critical issue of rebuilding Afghanistan with the SCO members.
India is especially keen on having a representative at the Tashkent-based Regional Anti Terror Structure (RATS), which is seen as a professional and technical body and has hard information on terrorism impacting the region. The cooperation against narco-terrorism in this body is said to be of a very high quality.
Krishna, who participated in the meeting said, “We have been playing a role as an observer, and now want to play a bigger role in SCO which has countries as our extended neighbourhood.”
India’s induction into the SCO will give a fillip to New Delhi’s engagement with Central Asia, which is an energy-rich area, New Delhi will be looking at the inter-connectivity in the future with these countries.
The SCO summit was attended by Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Iran Foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki among others.