India will host the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) annual meeting in a virtual format on July 4, the Ministry of External Affairs of India said on Tuesday.
The Ministry also said that heads of state of all members, including Russia, China and Pakistan, were invited.
The SCO summit was held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, last year, and all of the organization’s senior officials, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, attended.
“Under India’s first-ever chairmanship, the 22nd summit of the SCO Council of Heads of State will be held in the virtual format on July 4, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” the MEA said.
The defence and foreign ministers of the eight-member alliance personally met in India earlier this month.
China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan have all been invited to the summit, according to the MEA.
For the first time in April this year, the Chinese defence minister came to India for SCO’s defence minister summit after a military clash between India and Chinese forces on the Himalayan border in May 2020.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s foreign minister visited India earlier this month.
The SCO has become one of the largest transregional international organizations and is an influential economic and security bloc.
