Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif arrived in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on Thursday to attend the annual meeting of the Council of Heads of State (CHS) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
He is accompanied by Finance Minister Miftah Ismail and Defence Minister Khawaja Asif. Uzbekistan PM Abdulla Aripov received PM Shehbaz upon his arrival at the airport.
Later, the PM visited Hazrat Khizar complex and Tomb of Islam Karimov in Samarkand.
In a tweet before his departure, the PM said that the global economic turbulence has necessitated the need for more cooperation among the SCO member countries, adding that the SCO vision represents the aspirations of 40% of the world’s population.
“Pakistan reiterates its commitment to ‘Shanghai Spirit’. Mutual respect and trust can be the bedrock of shared development and prosperity,” he said.
The SCO has a great potential to chart a way forward at a time of deeply worrying transformation in the geo-political and geo-economic fields, PM Shehbaz said.
The SCO is made up of China, Russia, four Central Asian countries — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan — India and Pakistan. The CHS is the highest forum of the SCO, which considers and defines the organisation’s strategy, prospects and priorities.
In a statement, the Foreign Office (FO) said that SCO leaders will deliberate on important global and regional issues, including climate change, food security energy security, and sustainable supply chains.
“They would also approve agreements and documents that would chart the future direction of cooperation among SCO member states,” the statement read.
Since becoming a full member of SCO in 2017, Pakistan has been actively contributing towards advancing the organization’s core objectives through its participation in various SCO mechanisms, the FO said.
The PM will hold bilateral meetings with other participating leaders on the sidelines of the CHS. He will also meet Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.