PIB TrackerRajnath Singh addresses SCO defence ministers' meet
India presses for a unified, no-exceptions counter-terror stance at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation gathering in Bishkek.
What happened
- Raksha Mantri (Defence Minister) Shri Rajnath Singh addressed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers' Meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on 28 April 2026.
- He invoked Operation Sindoor — citing it as evidence of India's firm resolve — and called for a unified front against terrorism, separatism and extremism by eliminating safe havens and rejecting "political exceptions" for terror.
- He recalled last year's Tianjin Declaration and highlighted the SCO's Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) as the bloc's standing counter-terror machinery.
- He noted a joint statement on "Countering Radicalisation leading to Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism" issued during India's Chairmanship of the SCO.
- SCO members observed that 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of the organisation's founding.
- Closing, he invoked Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam ("the world is one family") and called for a more orderly, rule-based world order.
- On the sidelines (a separate release, PRID 2256403) he held bilateral meetings with his Kyrgyz, Kazakh and Belarusian counterparts and gifted two indigenous Bhishm Aarogya Maitri Health Cubes to Kyrgyzstan.
Background & context
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a permanent intergovernmental organisation focused on political, security, economic and connectivity cooperation across the Eurasian landmass. It was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by six states — China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — which is why 2026, its silver-jubilee year, is being marked as the 25th anniversary. The grouping grew directly out of the earlier "Shanghai Five" (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan), a confidence-building and border-demarcation mechanism set up in 1996; the admission of Uzbekistan in 2001 converted the Shanghai Five into the SCO. From its origin the organisation has placed countering the so-called "three evils" — terrorism, separatism and extremism — at the centre of its security agenda, which is the lineage Shri Rajnath Singh's address drew upon.
India's relationship with the bloc deepened over more than a decade. India joined as an observer in 2005 and was admitted as a full member in 2017 (at the Astana summit), alongside Pakistan — making the SCO one of the few high-table multilateral forums where India, Pakistan and China sit together. Iran became a full member in 2023 and Belarus in 2024, taking the full-member count to its current strength. The organisation runs on a structure of summits: a Heads of State Council (its supreme body, meeting annually), a Heads of Government (Prime Ministers') Council, and a network of ministerial councils — including the Council of Defence Ministers, the forum Shri Rajnath Singh was addressing, which coordinates military and security cooperation among members. Its permanent bodies are the Secretariat in Beijing and the counter-terror RATS Executive Committee in Tashkent.
The 2026 meeting sits in a recent diplomatic chain. India held the rotating Chairmanship of the SCO in 2023, hosting the leaders' summit in virtual format and steering counter-radicalisation language — the joint statement on countering radicalisation that the Minister referenced. The Tianjin Declaration he recalled was the outcome document of the most recent leaders' summit hosted by China, underscoring how each year's defence-ministers' meeting builds on the previous summit's political commitments. India's consistent line at these gatherings has been that cross-border terrorism cannot be selectively condoned — the "no political exceptions" formulation — a position sharpened here by the explicit invocation of Operation Sindoor, India's named military response to a terror provocation.
For Prelims
- The event: SCO Defence Ministers' Meeting (Council of Defence Ministers), held at Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on 28 April 2026; India represented by Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh.
- What the SCO is: the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a permanent Eurasian intergovernmental body for security, political, economic and connectivity cooperation; founded 2001 in Shanghai; 2026 = its 25th anniversary.
- Founding members (2001): China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan — the first five being the former "Shanghai Five" (1996), with Uzbekistan added in 2001.
- India's entry: observer in 2005, full member in 2017 (Astana summit), admitted together with Pakistan.
- Later full members: Iran (2023), Belarus (2024).
- The "three evils": the SCO's core security focus — terrorism, separatism and extremism.
- RATS: the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, the SCO's permanent counter-terrorism organ; its Executive Committee is headquartered in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
- Headquarters: the SCO Secretariat is in Beijing; the official working languages are Russian and Chinese.
- Top body: the Heads of State Council (annual summit) is the supreme decision-making organ; the Chairmanship rotates annually.
- Indian touchpoints invoked: the Tianjin Declaration (latest leaders' summit outcome), the counter-radicalisation joint statement from India's 2023 Chairmanship, and Operation Sindoor.
What it is NOT: The SCO is not a military alliance or a collective-defence pact — there is no mutual-defence (Article 5-style) obligation as in NATO, and it does not have a standing joint army; its defence cooperation runs through ministerial coordination, anti-terror exercises (such as the "Peace Mission" series) and RATS, not through a binding security guarantee. RATS is the SCO's own body — do not confuse it with a UN organ or with India's domestic agencies. The SCO is also distinct from BRICS, the CSTO (the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation, an actual military alliance) and the Eurasian Economic Union, even though their memberships overlap. The Secretariat (Beijing) and the RATS Executive Committee (Tashkent) are two different headquarters located in two different countries — a classic pairing trap.
The set it belongs to — SCO full members (the "how many / match-the-pairs" trap): China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan, Iran and Belarus. Beyond full members, the SCO recognises a tier of Observer States (notably Afghanistan and Mongolia) and a wider set of Dialogue Partners (such as Türkiye, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, the Maldives and Myanmar, among others). For the exam, anchor on the full-member roster first — that is where "which of the following is a member of the SCO?" questions usually land — and treat the partner tiers as the next layer of recall.
Why it matters
For India, the SCO is a forum of necessity and balance. It is one of the few venues where New Delhi engages China and Pakistan in the same room on hard security questions, and it anchors India in Central Asia — a region India calls its "extended neighbourhood" but reaches only with difficulty because Pakistan blocks direct overland access. Through the SCO, India advances connectivity priorities (the International North–South Transport Corridor and the Chabahar port in Iran are the practical instruments), energy interests and, above all, a counter-terrorism agenda. The defence-ministers' track is where the security half of that agenda is negotiated, which is why India uses it to press its central message: that terrorism cannot be treated as a tool of state policy and cannot be excused by political convenience.
The deeper problem the address speaks to is the credibility gap in collective counter-terrorism. The SCO formally condemns terrorism through RATS and successive declarations, yet members differ sharply over who is a terrorist and over cross-border sponsorship — the very "political exceptions" Shri Rajnath Singh asked the bloc to reject. By naming Operation Sindoor, India signalled both resolve and a refusal to let multilateral language paper over selective tolerance of terror. The 25th-anniversary framing adds weight: it invites the membership to judge the organisation against its founding promise on the "three evils." At the same time, India's participation illustrates the calculation behind strategic autonomy and multi-alignment — New Delhi sits inside a China- and Russia-shaped grouping while keeping its Quad and Western partnerships intact, using each forum for the interests it best serves rather than choosing a single camp.