S Jaishankar to meet Russia's Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister ahead of SCO meet

Foreign Minister S Jaishankar will engage with his Russian and Chinese counterparts in Goa separately on Thursday with an eye on an inclusive and secure Eurasia ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting on Friday.

Both Jaishankar’s meetings with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Qi Gang are expected to prepare for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit here for the SCO Summit on July 3-4. However, Xi’s physical presence for the SCO Summit is still unclear, ET has learnt.

Jaishankar is also expected to meet his Uzbek counterpart and SCO Secretary General on Thursday.


Coming close on the heels of the Chinese Defence Minister’s meeting with his Indian counterpart on the sidelines of SCO meeting last week, the Jaishankar-Qi meet will focus on disengagement on remaining friction points in the Ladakh sector along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Jaishankar is expected to call for restoration of status quo along LAC for any meaningful improvement in bilateral ties. This would be their second meeting since March 1 when they met here for the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting. The pending resolution of Depsang Bulge and Demchok in Ladakh tops the Indian agenda and New Delhi is willing to wait for a complete resolution rather than rushing to normalize ties.

Meanwhile, Jaishankar and Lavrov will pick up from where they left in March when Lavrov travelled to India for the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting and Raisina Dialogue. The focus will be on Putin’s India visit in July and outcomes of the SCO Summit. Russia is a key player in the SCO and keen to make the Indian presidency a success.

Several Russian Ministers have travelled to India since March and this included Defence, Far-East and Deputy Prime Minister besides NSA. Jaishankar and Lavrov are expected to focus on increasing trade in national currencies besides investments in each-others’ country, security partnership and geo-political developments.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Foreign Minister who is unlikely to get a standalone meeting with Jaishankar, is lobbying hard to meet Lavrov for a standalone engagement in Goa. But the Russian government has not taken any call on this as the bilateral agenda is quite limited in nature.