NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday left for a two-day visit to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Summit ( SCO ).

* The meeting of the Council of Heads of State of SCO will be held from June 13 to 14. PM Modi will also be holding a meeting with host nation Kyrgyzstan on June 14.

* In addition, the PM will also hold bilateral meetings with Russia and China on the sidelines of the summit, the ministry of external affairs stated.

* Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will also be attending the summit. This will be the first time two leaders will come face to face after months of tension between two countries, which began with February 14 Pulwama attack on a CRPF convoy.

* There would be no talks between PM Modi and Khan. This comes despite the Pakistan Prime Minister writing a letter to his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, saying Islamabad wants dialogue with New Delhi to resolve all outstanding issues between the two countries.

* India recently announced that PM Modi will not take the Pakistani air space for flying to the SCO summit in Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan and instead will fly by the circuitous route through Oman and Iran.

What is SCO?

It is a Eurasian political, economic and security alliance created in 2001 in Shanghai, China by China Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan became the members of the group in 2017.

The group meets once every year. The member countries apart from chalking out a common roadmap also conduct joint military exercises with an aim to counter external threats and promote regional peace and stability.

Known as the "alliance of the East", the SCO is the largest regional organisation in the world in terms of geographical coverage and population, covering three-fifths of the Eurasian continent and nearly half of the human population.

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