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On Friday, the Indian government confirmed receipt of an invitation from Pakistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Heads of Government (HoG) meeting.
The meeting is scheduled to take place in Islamabad on October 15 and 16.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) stated that a decision on India's participation and the level of representation has not yet been made.
India has refrained from attending any SAARC meetings hosted by Pakistan since 2016.
Attending the SCO HoG meeting in Islamabad would represent a significant deviation from this established policy.
Despite this, the MEA spokesperson did not definitively rule out the possibility of Indian participation in the SCO meeting in Pakistan.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a permanent international intergovernmental organization.
The creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was announced in June 2001 in Shanghai (China) by the Republic of Kazakhstan, the People’s Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Uzbekistan, The Russian Federation, and the Republic of Tajikistan.
In the historical meeting of the Heads of State Council of the SCO held in June 2017 in Astana, the status of a full member of the Organization was granted to the Republic of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in this meeting.
Members countries of SCO
There are 9 Member States: China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran
Iran is the new member of the SCO, which was recently added to the permanent member countries
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