Indian defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her Chinese counterpart general Wei Fenghe has held a bilateral meeting on Monday in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on the sidelines of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) defence ministers’ summit.
During the meeting, Sitharaman and Fenghe held discussion related to bilateral and regional security issues, according to ANI news reports.
Sitharaman is current on a three-day official trip to Kyrgyzstan to address the SCO forum, along with holding bilateral talks with other handful member-nations on the sidelines of the summit.
She is also slated to attend the ministerial meeting later on today on the SCO summit’s sidelines. The eight-member-states, during the meeting, will hold discussions regarding ways to increase the cooperation fighting terrorism, amongst several other issues.
The current SCO summit is being held in a run-up to the SCO forum, which is likely expected to take place on June 14 and June 15 this year.
In 2018, New Delhi had for the first participated in the SCO defence ministers’ summit. While speaking at last year’s meeting, Sitharam had expressed the country’s willingness to developing an extended partnership with other broader Eurasian regions.
The central military commission of Russia had conducted the 2018 joint exercise at Chebarkul, Chelyabinsk. The summit involved strategic level operations in counter-terrorism and an international counter-insurgency environment under the SCO summit charter.