New Delhi: India will send a 3-member team to Pakistan to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) next week. An anti-terrorism exercise led by the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) is being organized from October 3 at Pabbi in the Nowshera district of Pakistan. Its purpose is to increase cooperation against terrorism among SCO member countries. The government believes that its participation in this exercise will not undermine its claim of harboring terror against Pakistan. India’s presence in the exercise will be seen as an indication of the importance of the Central Asia-focused regional bloc’s role in security-related issues, especially in Afghanistan.
With Russia, India, China, Pakistan, and four Central Asian countries as full members joining the SCO, the SCO is likely to play an important role in political and diplomatic settlement efforts in Afghanistan.
The exercise was announced in March
According to the English newspaper Times of India, the exercise was announced in March this year after the meeting of RATS in Tashkent. India was the last country to confirm its participation to join. Under the SCO protocol, Pakistan had invited all the member countries including India for this exercise. Soldiers are not involved in this exercise and its purpose is to identify and stop the channels that fund terrorist activities. India is likely to be represented in this exercise by officials from the National Security Council Secretariat.
The SCO exercise is taking place at a time when India-Pakistan relations are going from bad to worse despite India and Pakistan reaching a ceasefire agreement in February this year. The Indian Army has accused Pakistani commanders of infiltrating into Jammu and Kashmir last month and earlier this week the army detained a Pakistani terrorist after an encounter in the Uri sector of the Line of Control.
