Meeting of SCO Foreign Ministers' Council Kicks Off in Beijing

BEIJING (Sputnik) - The meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has kicked off in Beijing in Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, a Sputnik correspondent reported Tuesday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Minister of External Affairs of India Sushma Swaraj, Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Kairat Abdrakhmanov, Foreign Minister of Kyrgyzstan Erlan Abdyldaev, Foreign Minister of Pakistan Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Foreign Minister of Tajikistan Sirojiddin Aslov, Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan Abdulaziz Kamilov, Secretary-General of the SCO Rashid Alimov, and Director of the Executive Committee of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure Yevgeniy Sysoyev are attending the meeting.

The participants are expected to discuss not only the course of the SCO cooperation over the past year, but also new areas of cooperation, possibly in trade and economy. Given that the country that is taking the rotating chair – China – has been in a state close to a trade conflict with the United States, this topic is gaining particular importance. So far, the SCO has mainly been focusing on security.

Moreover, foreign ministers will be preparing for the SCO summit that will take place in Chinese Qingdao in June. It will be the first time the SCO heads of states meet after having admitted new members – India and Pakistan – at a summit in Astana in 2017.