SCO wants bigger role for India, Pakistan

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has sought "bigger role" for India, Pakistan and other observers states in the security grouping.

Foreign Ministers of the SCO, who met here ahead of next month's summit, said the grouping should create a bigger role for observers and dialogue partners within the SCO framework, a press release issued at the end their meeting in Beijing on Friday said.

Members of the SCO, which was set up in Shanghai in 2001 include Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Pakistan, India, Iran and Mongolia have observer status while Turkmenistan and Afghanistan attend SCO gatherings as guest nations. Belarus and Sri Lanka have the status as dialogue partners.

According reports from Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who attended the meeting also called for speeding up of the process of accession of India and Pakistan to the grouping.

Any delay will be a counterproductive, he said.

The issue of expanding the membership was expected to come before next month's SCO summit to be held in Beijing early next month.

External Affairs Minister S M Krishna is expected to attend it.

The Foreign Minister's meeting called speeding up of the establishment of a special account and development bank in order to enhance members' ability to cope with new threats and challenges.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi who presided over the meeting said he foreign ministers agreed to improve SCO's ability to warn of potential crises and manage emergencies in order to maintain the sovereignty and security interests of SCO member countries.

The member countries should also make greater efforts to deal with the impact of issues related to finance, energy and food safety, Xinhua news agency quoted Yang as saying.

The foreign ministers will submit a draft regulation on political and diplomatic measures and mechanisms designed to deal with issues threatening regional peace, security and stability to a SCO summit to be held in June in Beijing for approval, the press release said.