According to the press service of the international organization, recently a regular meeting of the Council of National Coordinators of the SCO member states, which was devoted to the discussion of substantive, organizational and protocol issues of the meeting of the Council of Heads of SCO Member States, was held in New Delhi under the chairmanship of the Indian side in a mixed format. On July 4, it will take place in an online format.

National coordinators agreed on a draft New Delhi Declaration, as well as a package of documents for the upcoming summit.

The Hindu Post also reports that a virtual summit of SCO leaders will be held on July 4.

According to the Indian Foreign Ministry, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair.

“All SCO member states, that is, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, were invited to participate in the summit. In addition, Iran, Belarus and Mongolia were invited as observer states. By tradition of the SCO, Turkmenistan was also invited as a guest,” the report reads.

The theme of this year’s summit is Towards a SECURE SCO. Initially, this abbreviation was proposed at the SCO summit in 2018 by Prime Minister Modi.

As the Indian Foreign Ministry explained, the word SECURE is an abbreviation of the first letters of several words: security, economy and trade, connectivity, unity, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity and environment.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Iran’s full membership would be formalized at the event, as well as a memorandum on Belarus’ commitments to join the SCO would be signed.