- Thursday, May 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is likely to have bilateral meetings with Russian president Vladimir Putin and Uzbekistan president Shavkat Mirziyoyev on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, beginning Wednesday (14), sources said.
“PM Modi’s bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev are almost fixed and the meetings will take place on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Samarkand,” Asian News International quoted a source as saying.
Sources said it will be the first meeting between PM Modi and the Russian president since the Ukraine crisis started earlier this year. The two leaders have so far spoken to each other over the phone after the crisis began.
Modi would also have other bilateral meetings during the summit.
Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping are also likely to meet on the sidelines of the summit.
The Indian ambassador to Uzbekistan, Manish Prabhat, had said earlier that PM Modi will attend the summit and hold bilateral meetings with several leaders.
“Leaders of SCO member countries are meeting after two years due to the Covid pandemic. Some bilateral meetings will take place on the sidelines of the SCO but the programme of the meetings will be finalised in due course,” he had told ANI in an exclusive interview.
“Economic cooperation in the SCO is an important question, which, of course, will be discussed in the SCO meetings. When we are meeting with central Asian countries, we discuss connectivity which will promote trade, investment and other exchanges between Indian and central Asian countries,” he told ANI.
Pakistani prime minister Shahbaz Sharif and Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi are also expected to attend the summit.
Uzbekistan is the chair of SCO 2022 while India will be the next chair.
[With ANI inputs]
