Salman Khurshid will embark on a two-nation official visit to Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan from Thursday during which he will participate in the 13th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit on Friday.
Terming the Organization as very useful in the region given the evolving security situation in Afghanistan, counter-terrorism and energy cooperation, Spokesperson in the External Affairs Ministry said India has already expressed its willingness to play a broader and larger role in the grouping.
However, there has not been a final decision and SCO members are working on the modalities to see how they will approach the entire issue of expansion of SCO which are of financial, legal and administrative nature, he said.
"They are yet to come to a consensual decision on how to expand SCO. Once they do come to that decision, they will indicate to us and until then we will patiently continue our role as an Observer in the SCO," the Spokesperson said.
India has been an Observer at the SCO since 2005 and has generally been participating at the ministerial-level at these Summits.
A six-country multilateral body, SCO focuses on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian space. The precursor of the SCO was the 'Shanghai Five' constituted in 1996 by China to address border security issues with four of its neighbours.
In its present form, the SCO was founded at the Summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, People's Republic of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. At the 2005 Astana Summit, India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as Observers.
The Tashkent SCO Summit in June 2010 lifted the moratorium on new membership and paved the way for expansion of this regional grouping.
During his visit to Uzbekistan, the External Affairs Minister will hold bilateral discussions with the Uzbek Foreign Minister and also chair a conference of Indian Heads of Missions in the region.
