Deora to lead delegation to Shanghai, Almaty

New Delhi, June 13 (UNI) Petroleum Minister Murli Deora is leading a high-powered delegation to Shanghai and Almaty to attend the 6th Summit Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the 2nd Summit of the Conference on Interactions and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA).

India will attend the SCO meeting at Shanghai on June 15 as an observer.

Mongolia, Pakistan and Iran are the other observers, while China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are the members. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has been invited as a special guest.

Mr Deora, who will be accompanied by senior officials of the Ministries of Petroleum and External Affairs, will also have bilateral meetings with various leaders on the sidelines of the Summit.

India views the SCO as an important organisation for promoting cooperation to counter terrorism and drug trafficking and for promoting economic and cultural ties.

Mr Deora will be in Almaty, Kazakhastan on June 17 to participate in the CICA Summit, and is expected to have bilateral meetings with other leaders of the CICA.

India is one of the active members of the CICA process right from its inception.

At present, CICA has 17 members. In addition to all the member and observer states of SCO, it includes Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Thailand and Turkey.

CICA has held one Summit (2002) and two Foreign Ministerial meetings (1999, 2004).

India views CICA as an important process in spreading the message of peace, security and friendship so that peoples of Asia could concentrate on removal of poverty and promotion of socio-economic development through close bilateral and regional cooperation.

UNI YJ MSJ GC1831