Sushma Swaraj meets SCO Secretary General

New Delhi May 8 (IANS) Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi s participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in China next month External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday held a meeting with SCO Secretary General Rashid Alimov here.

"India became a full member of SCO in June 2017 and will extend full cooperation to further consolidate SCO as an effective regional platform " External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted following the meeting.

The SCO is a Eurasian inter-governmental organisation the creation of which was announced in 2001 in Shanghai by Kazakhstan China Kyrgyzstan Russia Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It was preceded by the Shanghai Five mechanism.

India along with Pakistan were granted full member status at the SCO Summit in Astana Kazakhstan in June last year.

Last month Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman participated for the first time in the SCO Foreign Ministers and Defence Ministers meetings respectively in Beijing.

--IANS
ab/vd