Home minister Rajnath Singh to take part in SCO meet on disaster relief
The meeting is expected to focus primarily on prevention and elimination of emergency situations arising out of any kind of disaster.
New Delhi: Home minister Rajnath Singh will participate in the meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) that would focus on disaster prevention and relief in Kyrgyz Republic on Thursday.
The home minister is expected to have bilateral meetings with some of the member nations though no meeting has yet been finalised with his Chinese counterpart. In case Mr Singh does meet his Chinese counterpart, the meeting would assume significance since India and China are presently involved in a major confrontation in the Doklam region of Sikkim.
Speaking at an ITBP event on Monday, he expressed hope that the ongoing standoff with China would be resolved soon with Beijing taking some positive initiative. However, China, further hardening its stand, stated on Tuesday that the only way to resolve the crisis was for India to withdraw its troops “unconditionally” from the Doklam region.
Both India and Pakistan became part of the SCO, which is viewed as a Chinese dominated security apparatus, in June in Kazakhstan capital Astana. The meet was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A home ministry statement stated on Wednesday that the home minister would lead a delegation for the 9th summit of the heads of governments of SCO member nations, which would be held at Choplon Ata in Kyrgyz Republic from August 24-25. The Indian delegation will comprise senior officials from the ministries of home affairs and external affairs as well as the National Disaster Management Authority.
The meeting is expected to focus primarily on prevention and elimination of emergency situations arising out of any kind of disaster. “The participation of India as the SCO member will open the additional opportunities for giving new impetus to the development of international co-operation in the field of protecting the population and territories from emergency situations within the framework of the SCO, and will bring it qualitatively new positions in regional and global formats,” the home ministry statement added.
The SCO meeting will also take into consideration the draft action plan for 2018-2019 for the implementation of the agreement between the governments of the SCO member states on co-operation in providing assistance in the elimination of emergency situations.