TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ India and five Central Asian countries held their first summit on Thursday and decided to set up a joint working group on Afghanistan as Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised that cooperation between India and Central Asia is essential for regional security and is now more important in the context of developments in Afghanistan.
In a significant decision, the leaders agreed to institutionalise the summit mechanism by deciding to hold it every two years, besides holding regular meetings between their foreign, trade, and culture ministers. An India-Central Asia Secretariat in New Delhi would also be set up to support the new mechanism.
After the summit, also attended by the five presidents — Kazakhstan’s Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbekistan’s Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan’s Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow and Sadyr Japarov of Kyrgyz Republic, the leaders came out with ‘Delhi Declaration’ and agreed that terrorism must be comprehensively countered to achieve a ‘world free of terror.’
Asserting that Central Asia is “central to India’s vision of an integrated and stable extended neighbourhood”, Modi also pitched for an integrated approach for regional connectivity and cooperation for the next 30 years as part of the three main goals of the summit.
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