India, Pakistan to Jointly Participate in Military Exercise in Russia as Part of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

Beijing, April 25: India along with Pakistan will be participating in a multi-nation military exercise to be conducted in Russia in September this year. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday confirmed India’s participation. Chinese forces will also be part of this exercise.

The military exercise in Russia is part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). India, China, Russia and Pakistan, among several other countries, are part of the SCO, bloc of mostly Asian countries. For the first time, India is attending the Defence Ministers’ meeting at SCO being hosted in China.

Indian and Pakistan soldiers have worked together in the past while providing security or in convoy protection deployment in the United Nations peacekeeping missions. The exercise, “Peace Mission 2018” is scheduled to be held in Russia’s Ural Mountains. It will begin in August-end and conclude in the first week of September. It will be the first-ever exercise in which Indian and Pakistan militaries will be participating together to conduct the mock military operation to eliminate terrorists. 'Peace Mission 2018' will be the fifth edition of the biennial multilateral exercise by the SCO countries. India will send a 200-strong contingent to Russia, reported The Tribune, citing sources.

India and Pakistan became the full member of the SCO on June 9, 2017. Both the nations were admitted as observers in 2005 and began the administrative process of joining the organisation, which started in 2001 in Shanghai by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. Now the Organisation has eight full members. Another four nations have been accorded “observer” status, while six others are “dialogue” partners.

During her China visit Sitharaman said, “India enjoys excellent bilateral defence cooperation with a large number of SCO countries, especially with Russia, as well as with all of India’s Central Asian partners represented in the SCO.” The Defence Minister further added, “We are guided in our relations with China by the consensus reached between our leaders that at the time of global uncertainty, India-China relations could be a factor of stability and that we must not allow our differences to become disputes.”

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 25, 2018 05:31 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).