Beijing (May 31, 2017): China has hoped that Pakistan and India will improve bilateral relations after becoming the full members of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) during upcoming Astana Summit.
Speaking at a briefing in Beijing, spokesperson of Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hua Chunying said we hope that Pakistan and India would inject new impetus to the development of organization.
“The members states of the SCO are accelerating the MoU procedures with the two countries and everything is going very well,” foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.
“We hope India and Pakistan as the full members at the Astana summit (on June 8-9). We also expect the Astana summit will complete the admission procedures for the two countries,” Ms. Hua told reporters.
The SCO summit is likely to be held this month in Astana, Kazakhstan. China has also demanded removal of advanced US THAAD missile defense system from South Korea.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying called on seoul to remove controversial Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system.
The political and security grouping — headquartered in Beijing — was founded in 2001 and comprises Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, besides China as full members. It is mainly aimed at military cooperation between the members and involves intelligence-sharing, counter-terrorism operations in Central Asia.
Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan have observer status.
During the 2015 summit in Ufa, Russia, the SCO formally adopted a resolution starting the process to admit India and Pakistan into the organisation as full members.
The Chinese foreign spokesperson also hoped that the admission of Pakistan and India as full members would help improve their bilateral relations.
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