NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Uzbekistan last night to attend the 22nd SCO Summit. Modi left for Uzbekistan on a special flight from Delhi at 7 pm. Modi is expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on the sidelines of the SCO summit. The meeting with Putin after the invasion of Ukraine is of utmost importance.

The SCO currently comprises eight Member States (China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), four Observer States interested in acceding to full membership (Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia) and six "Dialogue Partners" (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey).

The Shanghai Five, formed in 1996, became the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2001 with the inclusion of Uzbekistan. With India and Pakistan entering the grouping in 2017 and the decision to admit Tehran as a full member in 2021, SCO became one of the largest multilateral organisations, accounting for nearly 30 per cent of the global GDP and 40 per cent of the world's population.