Why in news?
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will be invited to participate in the Heads of Government Council meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that will be hosted in India in 2020.
More about SCO
- The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a Eurasian political, economic, and security alliance
- This was formed on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai, China
- The leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan were involved in the formation
- The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Charter, formally establishing the Organisation, was signed in June 2002 and entered into force on 19 September 2003
- India and Pakistan joined SCO as full members on 9 June 2017 at a summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.
- The Heads of State Council (HSC) is the supreme decision-making body in the SCO, it meets once a year and adopts decisions and guidelines on all important matters of the Organisation
- The SCO is widely regarded as the “alliance of the East”, due to its growing centrality in Asia-Pacific
