After India, Russia Says Don't Raise Bilateral Issues At Regional SCO

Russia today backed India's assertion that Pakistan should not bring bilateral disputes like the Kashmir issue to deliberations at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), saying it is against the basic principles of the grouping.

In his address, at a virtual summit of the SCO on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hit out at those making repeated attempts to "unnecessarily" bring bilateral issues to the SCO in violation of the grouping's foundational principles. PM Modi's comments were seen as an oblique reference to Pakistan's attempts to raise the Kashmir issue in the SCO.

"This is part of the SCO charter not to bring bilateral issues into the agenda (of the SCO) and we made it clear to all member states that it should be avoided for the sake of the progress of multilateral cooperation," Russian Deputy Chief of Mission Roman Babushkin said at a media briefing.

He was replying to a question on whether Russia, as chair of the SCO, took up the issue with Pakistan.

"As far as Pakistan-India dispute is concerned, our position remains unchanged. We hope that such kind of incidents do not occur," Roman Babushkin said.

In mid-September, India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval had walked out of a virtual meeting of top security officials of the SCO member states after the Pakistani representative projected a map that inaccurately depicted Kashmir.

India had slammed Pakistan for the "blatant disregard" to the norms of the meeting.