SCO Summit 2026 at Bishkek: Bishkek Declaration and India's Three Pillars

SCO Summit 2026 at Bishkek: Why It Is in the News

26th SCO Summit: Dates, Theme, Host and Leaders

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov chaired the summit under the theme "25 Years of the SCO: Together for Sustainable Peace, Development and Prosperity". All 10 members were represented at the top: Xi Jinping of China, Vladimir Putin of Russia, Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran, Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and the presidents of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Japarov. Leaders of observer and partner countries, such as Mongolia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey, attended an expanded "SCO Plus" session, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was also present.

Prime Minister Modi reached Bishkek after a state visit to Uzbekistan, his fourth visit there, and attended the opening of the sixth World Nomad Games on 31 August, Kyrgyzstan's Independence Day. It was the first summit of the grouping since the United States and Israel began their war on Iran on 28 February 2026, and that war, with United States tariffs and sanctions on Russia, made this summit more sombre than the one at Tianjin in 2025.

Bishkek Declaration 2026: Iran, Afghanistan, Terrorism and Missile Defence

The Bishkek Declaration was adopted with 27 other documents, among them four memoranda of understanding and more than 20 decisions and statements on fields such as climate, nuclear safety, energy conservation and drug addiction. Its main positions were these.

• Iran: Deep concern at, and condemnation of, the military strikes on Iran; support for its sovereignty and territorial integrity; criticism of the United States and Israel for violating international law and the UN Charter; and support for the right of members to develop atomic energy for peaceful purposes.
• West Asia: A just settlement of the Palestine question as the only way to lasting stability in the region, and deep concern over the war in the Persian Gulf region.
• Afghanistan: A call on the Taliban administration to form an inclusive government with all ethno-political groups.
• Terrorism: Strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms, including cross-border terrorism, and of the three evils of terrorism, separatism and extremism.
• Missile defence: Opposition to the unilateral and unlimited build-up of global missile defence systems by groups of states, which the declaration said harms international security.
• Satellite internet: The position that unauthorised satellite internet services on members' territory violate international law.

The declaration said nothing on Russia's role in the war in Ukraine. Members also backed aligning China's Belt and Road Initiative with the Eurasian Economic Union, a passage India stayed away from, as it does not endorse the BRI.

Modi's Bilateral Meetings at Bishkek: Iran, Russia and the BRICS Run-Up

The summit gave Prime Minister Modi his first meeting with Iran's President since the war began. In Bishkek on 31 August he urged President Pezeshkian to help secure peace in West Asia and freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, and said civilians, commercial shipping and seafarers must not be harmed. President Pezeshkian blamed Israel and the United States for the conflict and asked India to use its contacts to help the dialogue.

With President Putin, the Prime Minister said the world must "move from endless war to end of war". They discussed the conflicts in West Asia and the Black Sea, where Indian seafarers have been attacked, and President Putin noted that 40,000 Indians were studying in Russia. Both meetings also prepared for the BRICS Summit that India hosted in New Delhi on 12 and 13 September, where a deadlock between Iran and the UAE later threatened the joint declaration.

What Is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation: Origin, Charter and Members

From the Shanghai Five to the SCO: Founding in 2001

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) grew out of a border-confidence group. The Shanghai Five, formed in April 1996 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, settled the frontiers left by the break-up of the Soviet Union. Uzbekistan joined in 2001, making it the Shanghai Six, and the six founded the SCO on 15 June 2001.

A body built to manage borders among states that distrusted one another works by consensus, and that origin still explains both its survival for 25 years and the limits on what any member can push through it. The SCO has no collective defence commitment, and its members include rivals such as India and Pakistan, and India and China, whose boundary is unsettled.

SCO Charter: Shanghai Spirit, Three Evils and Official Languages

The SCO Charter sets the organisation's spirit, goals and rules. Its preamble speaks of mutual trust, mutual advantage, equality, mutual consultations, respect for cultural diversity and aspiration for joint development, a formula known as the Shanghai Spirit.

• Goals: Mutual trust and good-neighbourliness, regional peace and stability, a democratic, fair and rational international order, and cooperation in politics, trade, defence, energy, transport, environment, culture, education and science.
• The three evils: Joint combating of terrorism, separatism and extremism in all their manifestations, along with illicit narcotics and arms trafficking and other transnational crime.
• Principles: Mutual respect of sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of states, inviolability of state borders, non-aggression and non-interference in internal affairs.
• Languages: Russian and Chinese are the official and working languages of the SCO.

Two of these matter directly for India. The principle of territorial integrity is the basis of India's objection to connectivity projects that cross its territory, and India's push for English as an official language, an initiative that found a place in the Bishkek Declaration, follows from the language clause.

SCO Members 2026: Member Countries, Observers and Dialogue Partners

The SCO has 10 member states, two observers and 15 dialogue partners. India and Pakistan joined together at Astana in June 2017, Iran at the summit India hosted virtually on 4 July 2023, and Belarus became the tenth member at Astana on 4 July 2024.

Together the members cover at least 24 per cent of the world's area, about 65 per cent of Eurasia, and hold 42 per cent of the world's population. Their share of world output is about 23 per cent at market prices (2024) and about 36 per cent at purchasing power parity, so the grouping is far more populous than it is rich.

SCO Structure: Councils, Secretariat and RATS

Council of Heads of State and the Other SCO Councils

The Council of Heads of State is the SCO's supreme body. It meets once a year in the country that holds the presidency, which rotates among members in Russian alphabetical order. India is represented by the Prime Minister.

• Council of Heads of Government: The second-highest body; it meets yearly on trade, economic cooperation and the budget. The External Affairs Minister represented India at its meeting in Islamabad in 2024.
• Council of Foreign Ministers: Meets about a month before the summit to settle the draft outcome documents, so most of a declaration is negotiated before leaders arrive.
• Council of National Coordinators: Runs day-to-day work and prepares the other councils' meetings; India's coordinator is the Additional Secretary (SCO) in the External Affairs Ministry.
• Ministerial meetings: Defence, economy and trade, transport, culture, health, justice, emergency situations, and the secretaries of national security councils, among others.

In all the SCO has 29 charter bodies and more than 40 working mechanisms that meet through the year. Even where members disagree, these regular channels keep them talking, which can matter in a sudden crisis between neighbours. Beyond its own bodies, the SCO has been an observer in the UN General Assembly since 2005.

SCO Headquarters: Secretariat in Beijing and RATS in Tashkent

The SCO has two permanent bodies, the Secretariat in Beijing and the Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent. They carry out the councils' decisions. The Secretary-General, Nurlan Yermekbaev of Kazakhstan, took office in January 2025 for a three-year term.

RATS works through information rather than force. It keeps a database of individuals and organisations that member states have designated as terrorist, separatist or extremist, and coordinates intelligence among members. India has also taken part in the SCO's counter-terrorism exercises. In 2018, 200 Indian personnel joined the Peace Mission exercise at Chebarkul, Russia, from 22 to 29 August, India's first after membership, and Indian troops took part again in 2021.

New SCO Centres and the SCO Development Bank Proposal

The organisation is adding new machinery. At the Tianjin summit of 31 August and 1 September 2025, members agreed to set up an SCO Universal Center for Countering Security Challenges and Threats, against organised crime and cyber and information threats, and approved an SCO Anti-Drug Center for intelligence sharing and joint operations against narcotics trafficking.

On finance, the SCO Interbank Consortium has existed since October 2005 to fund joint projects, and at the Tianjin summit of 2025 China announced plans to speed up the creation of an SCO Development Bank. Together with leaders' calls for more trade in local currencies, the planned bank is one way the grouping pushes back against an economic order led by the United States.

India and the SCO: From Observer to Member

India's Path to SCO Membership: Astana 2005, Ufa 2015, Astana 2017

India's entry took 12 years. At the Astana summit of July 2005 India, Iran and Pakistan became observers; at Ufa in Russia in July 2015 the members decided to admit India; and India formally joined at Astana in June 2017, at the same summit as Pakistan. India came in with Russia's backing, as Pakistan did with China's, and since then it has sat inside a security grouping alongside both China and Pakistan.

India's interest is driven by geography, not ideology. Central Asia, rich in hydrocarbons and bordering Russia, China, Afghanistan and Pakistan, has become a zone of competition between outside powers, and India and Tajikistan are separated only by the narrow Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan. Prime Minister Modi visited all five Central Asian countries in 2015, and India's trade in goods with the region has grown from $500 million in 2010 to more than $2 billion in 2025, while China-Central Asia trade reached $106 billion in 2025. India invited all five Central Asian leaders as chief guests for Republic Day in 2022; the pandemic kept that meeting online, and the India-Central Asia Summit had not met again by August 2026.

India's SCO Chairships and the SECURE SCO Framework

India has chaired both main councils. The Vice-President chaired the 19th Council of Heads of Government, hosted virtually on 30 November 2020, the first summit-level meeting under India's chair. India then took over the presidency of the Council of Heads of State at the Samarkand summit on 17 September 2022 and hosted the virtual summit of 4 July 2023 that admitted Iran.

As chair, India set out its priorities as a SECURE SCO; SECURE stands for Security, Economic development, Connectivity, Unity, Respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, and Environmental protection. More than 130 meetings and events were held under its chairship, 14 of them ministerial, and India opened five new areas of work in start-ups and innovation, traditional medicine, science and technology, youth empowerment and shared Buddhist heritage. Varanasi was the first SCO Cultural and Tourism Capital for 2022‑23.

India's Stake: Budget Share, Posts and Central Asia Connectivity

India pays 5.9 per cent of the SCO's annual budget and holds two designated posts, a Deputy Secretary-General at the Secretariat in Beijing and a Referent at the RATS headquarters in Tashkent. These give India continuous sight of the organisation's work, not just a seat once a year.

Its real constraint is access. With no land route to Central Asia that avoids Pakistan, India relies on two projects through Iran.

• International North-South Transport Corridor: A 7,200 km network of sea, rail and road routes for freight between India, Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe, agreed by India, Iran and Russia on 16 May 2002 and estimated to be 30 per cent cheaper and 40 per cent shorter than the route through the Suez Canal.
• Chabahar: Under a 2016 agreement India undertook to refurbish a berth at the Shahid Beheshti port and to rebuild a 600 m container facility. The port, 800 km closer to the Afghan border than Pakistan's Karachi, gives India a route for trade with Afghanistan that does not pass through Pakistan.

Both routes run through Iran, so the war on Iran and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz bear directly on India's access to Central Asia; the blockade was among the concerns the Prime Minister raised with Iran's President at Bishkek.

India's SCO Agenda at Bishkek: Security, Connectivity and Opportunity

Security Pillar: Dismantling the Terror Ecosystem

Prime Minister Modi first set out India's vision of security, connectivity and opportunity at Tianjin in 2025; at Bishkek he said the time had come to turn it into concrete outcomes. On terrorism he said the SCO cannot stay with an action-reaction approach and must dismantle the whole ecosystem of terrorist financing, recruitment, radicalisation and safe havens.

He asked members to speak with one voice, with no double standards, and to send a strong message to countries that use terrorism as an instrument of policy and give safe haven to terrorists, because terrorism can never be a strategic asset for anyone. The line was a pointed reference to Pakistan, and it came as Pakistan took over the SCO chair.

• Peace in Afghanistan: A peaceful Eurasia is linked to peace in Afghanistan, where India gives development and humanitarian aid and will continue to do so.
• The war in West Asia: The war has hit energy security, maritime trade and supply chains, and the Global South bears the greatest brunt; conflicts must be settled by dialogue and diplomacy, not on the battlefield.
• Narcotics: Drug trafficking is not merely a crime but a threat to young people and to regional security, which is why the new SCO centres must work in practice.

Connectivity Pillar: Sovereignty, the CPEC Objection and Customs

India backs connectivity that links markets and opens trade, but insists that it respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, which the Prime Minister called the fundamental spirit of the SCO Charter. The objection is to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a part of China's Belt and Road Initiative that runs through Gilgit-Baltistan, Indian territory under Pakistan's occupation.

Grounding the objection in the Charter turns a bilateral dispute into a question about a text every member has signed. The Prime Minister also widened the idea of connectivity beyond roads, railways and air corridors to simpler customs, digital documentation and efficient logistics.

Opportunity Pillar: Youth, Start-ups and the Civilisational Dialogue Forum

The third pillar is about who benefits. Prime Minister Modi said SCO cooperation should be people-driven, not only government-driven, and measured by the opportunities it creates for young people, the markets it opens for entrepreneurs, the technology it brings to farmers and the lives it improves. He welcomed Kyrgyzstan's focus on youth and listed India's own platforms, the SCO Start-up Forum, the Young Authors' Conclave and the Young Scientists' Forum.

Challenges for India in the SCO and the Road to Islamabad 2027

Consensus, the China-Pakistan Dyad and Pakistan's Chairship

Negotiating against a China-Pakistan pair inside the SCO is demanding but essential for India. Consensus lets India put its terrorism language into the record, but a declaration cannot name a member, and it does not by itself change any member's conduct. In the same way, every member accepts the Charter's sovereignty principle, yet China and Pakistan do not accept that the CPEC violates it.

• Pakistan's chair: Pakistan sets the agenda for 2026‑27 and hosts the next summit at Islamabad. As of September 2026, India had not said at what level it would attend; the External Affairs Minister went to Islamabad for the heads of government meeting in 2024, but Pahalgam, Operation Sindoor and the Indus Waters Treaty decision have since hardened ties.
• A changed neighbourhood: Pakistan has gained diplomatic room through its mediation between Iran and the United States and a new security pact with Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
• China's weight: Central Asia trade with China dwarfs India's, and members backed the BRI-Eurasian Economic Union alignment that India rejects.
• Strain from outside: United States tariffs, the war on Iran and sanctions on Russia have damaged economic and energy security and connectivity across the grouping.

Why the SCO Still Matters for India

The SCO remains one of the few forums where India can engage China, Russia, Iran and the Central Asian states at once. India and China began to re-engage after Galwan when Prime Minister Modi met President Xi at the Kazan BRICS summit in 2024, and at Tianjin in 2025 they agreed on an "early harvest" proposal on boundary delimitation and on resuming border trade through three points, despite China's support for Pakistan during Operation Sindoor.

The forum also serves India's other goals. Its sidelines let the Prime Minister meet the leaders of Iran and Russia before the BRICS summit, and Central Asian votes matter in the UN Security Council election of June 2027, in which, as of August 2026, India and Tajikistan were both candidates for the Asian non-permanent seat. For Kyrgyzstan and its neighbours, which depend heavily on China, India offers a valuable counterweight, and the SCO gives it a place to do so.

SCO for UPSC: Syllabus Links and Exam Angles

SCO in the UPSC Syllabus: GS Paper II Regional Groupings

The SCO belongs to General Studies Paper II, under regional and global groupings and agreements involving India or affecting its interests, and important international institutions, their structure and mandate. Its security agenda, from terror financing to narcotics, also reaches GS Paper III, and state PCS papers ask the same facts.

• Prelims facts: Founding on 15 June 2001; the Shanghai Five of 1996; 10 members, two observers and 15 dialogue partners; Russian and Chinese as official languages; the Secretariat in Beijing and RATS in Tashkent; India's observer status in 2005 and membership in 2017.
• Mains analysis: The SCO's aims and India's interests, managing rivalries inside a consensus body, the CPEC objection grounded in the Charter, Central Asia connectivity through Iran.
• Current facts: Bishkek, 31 August to 1 September 2026; Pakistan's chair for 2026‑27; India's four initiatives in the Bishkek Declaration.