LEADERS and top officials from the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) met in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad today and called for enhanced co-operation in areas including security, trade and health. 

They also called for boosting people-to-people contact and minimising the impacts of climate change.

The meeting was held amid tight security in Islamabad, and attended by leaders including Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and the prime ministers of Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Mongolia.

The capital was virtually locked down as Pakistan deployed extra police and troops to ensure security, making it difficult even for ambulances to get around.

The SCO meetings came more than a week after two Chinese engineers were killed in a suicide bombing outside the airport in Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province.

An outlawed separatist group, which opposes Chinese-funded projects in Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Thousands of Chinese are currently working on projects related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of China’s popular Belt and Road Initiative, a global endeavour aimed at providing support to the global South.

In his remarks at the meeting, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called for expanding China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, focusing on roads, railways and digital infrastructure.

China is building power plants, roads, railroads and ports around the world under the Belt and Road Initiative, a major part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s push for China to play a larger role in global affairs.

Mr Sharif also called for a peaceful Afghanistan and said that its soil should not be used for violence against any country.

Mr Sharif’s remarks came amid a surge in violence in Pakistan, for which the government blames militants based in Afghanistan. Kabul has denied the charge.

In a joint statement, the SCO meeting said that the heads of delegations have reaffirmed that the member states “intend to further develop co-operation in the spheres of politics and security, trade, economy, finance and investment, and cultural and humanitarian ties in order to build a peaceful, safe, prosperous and ecologically clean planet Earth to achieve harmonious coexistence of man and nature.”

It said that leaders and officials from Belarus, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan had reaffirmed support for China’s One Belt, One Road initiative.

The meeting also vowed “to co-operate on climate change and overcome its negative consequences.”

Mr Sharif said that the next meeting of SCO will be held in Russia in 2025.