SCO foreign minister's virtual meet on COVID-19 on Wednesday
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The last time Indian and Pakistan FMs were supposed to be in the room was during the informal SAARC meet that happens on the sidelines of UNGA every year
The foreign ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will meet on Wednesday via video conference starting 1:30 pm onwards in which India will be represented by external affairs ministers S Jaishankar.
The meet will see the participation of all foreign ministers of SCO including Chinese FM Wang Yi, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov and Pakistan FM Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
SCO is a grouping of eight countries China, Russia, India, Pakistan and four Central Asian countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
This is the first time Indian and Pakistan FMs will be in the same window in any virtual meet on COVID-19. So far NAM video conference meet saw Indian PM and Pak President Arif Alvi, SAARC video conference saw PM Modi and Pak being represented by a junior advisor.
The last time Indian and Pakistan FMs were supposed to be in the room was during the informal SAARC meet that happens on the sidelines of UNGA every year. The Pakistan FM did not enter the room till EAM had left the room.
The SCO FMs meet happens days after BRICS FMs meet. During the BRICS FMs meet, all the countries agreed to set up $15 billion loan instrument to finance projects for the economic rebuilding of BRICS countries due to COVID-19 crisis.
Russia is the chair of the BRICS and SCO grouping for the year 2020 and will host the summit later this year.
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