⇒Indian national security advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval attended the SCO NSA meet in Dushanbe, Tajikistan on June 23-24, 2021.
Pakistan’s NSA Moeed Yusuf and Afghan NSA Hamdullah Mohib are also among those who attended the SCO NSA meeting.
Host:
Tajikistan, the current president of the SCO, hosted the 16th meeting of the secretaries of the Security Councils of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
Objective:
The SCO NSA meet helped prepare the security and counter-terror agenda of the group in the run up to this year’s Summit. Counter-terror cooperation is a key pillar of SCO. Afghanistan was a key theme at this edition of SCO NSA meet.
Discussion:
During the meeting, “Issues of cooperation in the joint fight against the threats of international terrorism, extremism, separatism, religious radicalism, the risks of increasing transnational organised crime, including arms and drug trafficking, were discussed.”
Indian Representative:
Speaking at the meeting of national security chiefs for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Ajit Doval said there is a need to monitor new technologies used by terrorists, including drones, for smuggling of weapons and misuse of dark Web.
He also proposed an action plan against Pakistan-based terror groups Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) as part of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation framework.
About SCO:
Beijing-based SCO is an eight-member economic and security bloc. It was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001. It was founded by the Presidents of Russia, China and the four Central Asian countries of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan became its permanent members in 2017.