ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan would attend the annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)’s Heads of States to be held on September 16-17, 2021, in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.

Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon, in capacity of the country’s current chair of the SCO, would preside over the annual summit of the organisation of eight-member countries – China, Russia, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

The summit is expected to be dominated by deliberations on Afghanistan situation and the leaders of the member states would share their own perspectives of the situation.

Afghanistan is holding the observer status, but it is unclear whether any representative from Afghan side would attend the summit or not.

A meeting of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group is also likely to be held to deliberate upon the unfolding situation in Afghanistan and its potential impact on regional peace and security.

Diplomatic sources said that Prime Minister Imran Khan would present Pakistan’s viewpoint about the situation and present the possible way out to deal with the challenges posed to the region due to the current situation in Afghanistan.

On the sidelines, the sources said that Prime Minister Khan would meet a number of heads of states, but no meeting with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been scheduled so far.

The SCO leaders would deliberate upon important regional and international issues and exchanged views on strengthening cooperation between the SCO member states across diverse areas including security, trade and economy, energy, industry, food security, culture, health, environment, transport links and connectivity, and the summit is expected to adopt a joint communique at the conclusion.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021