India refuses to endorse China's Belt and Road Initiative

India refused to endorse China's flagship connectivity program — the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with the Bishkek declaration of the SCO's head of state council mentioning names of only six countries backing it.

The declaration said, "The Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan reaffirm their support for China's Belt and Road Initiative and praise the results of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (Beijing, 26 April 2019)."

The six countries also noted the ongoing work to implement BRI initiative together, including the efforts to align the Eurasian Economic Union projects with those under the BRI.

India has raised concerns about BRI since a part of it — the CPEC, passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. At the SCO summit, PM Narendra Modi said connectivity projects should be "transparent, inclusive and should respect the territorial integrity of countries."

But the SCO members — India, Pakistan, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan agreed to "expand the practice of using national currencies in transactions" between themselves, which will be seen as a challenge to the dominance of the US dollar.

There was agreement on dealing with terrorism with the declaration saying, "The Member States, stressing that acts of terrorism and extremism cannot be justified, believe it important to take comprehensive measures to intensify efforts against terrorism and its ideology." It called for the passage of the Indian proposal of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) that calls for a common definition of terrorism. Along with India, other SCO members such as Afghanistan also raised the issue of terror.

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani highlighted the link between terror and narcotics and said they "threaten both, our wellbeing and the security of SCO members and observers."

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said, "Terrorism, in its different types, extremism, unilateralism, and interference of extra-regional countries in the affairs of other regions and interference in the internal affairs of other countries have put the international community in a grave situation."

—Zee Media Newsroom