Rajnath Singh in Kyrgyzstan to attend SCO meet

New Delhi Aug 23 (IANS) Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is heading a delegation to the Kyrgyz Republic to attend a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting on the sidelines of which he is likely to hold bilateral meetings with ministers of some member countries which include China and Pakistan.

During the two-day meeting at Choplon Ata on August 24-25 the SCO member states will consider and approve the draft Action Plan for 2018-2019 for the implementation of the agreement on cooperation in providing assistance in the elimination of emergency situations a Home Ministry statement said on Wednesday.

The Indian delegation comprises of senior officers from the Ministry of Home Affairs the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Ministry of External Affairs.

India got full membership of SCO earlier this year when Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the SCO annual Summit meeting in Astana Kazakhstan in June.

The participation of India as SCO Member will open additional opportunities for giving new impetus to the development of international cooperation in the field of protecting the people and territories from emergency situations within the framework of the SCO and bring it qualitatively new positions in regional and global formats the statement said.

The SCO member countries are: China Kazakhstan Kyrgyz Republic Russia Tajikistan Uzbekistan. Pakistan and India were inducted as full members this year.

--IANS
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