All eyes on possible Jaishankar and Chinese foreign minister Wang meet in Astana

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will host a series of meetings with his counterparts here between Tuesday to Thursday as part of India's Eurasian outreach on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit.

After arriving in Astana, Jaishankar met his Kazakh counterpart here.

All eyes will be on a possible meeting between Jaishankar and Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi here on Thursday, their first bilateral meeting in nearly a year as India and China relations have been fraught after a standoff in Ladakh with Beijing showing no signs of disengagement at Depsang yet.

The two briefly met at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year. Recently, the Chinese Ambassador to India had called on Jaishankar in New Delhi.

The chill in ties with China continues and India's decision to allow the US delegation to meet the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala and refusal to agree for resumption of direct flight signals that relations are far from normal despite burgeoning trade and demand from the Indian industry to relax visas for Chinese professionals. Currently, India has restrictions on the number of visas that it issues from Beijing and other consulates in China.

China is yet to agree to a pre-Galwan situation at the remaining friction points in Ladakh delaying normalisation of ties. In February, India and China held a fresh round of high-level military talks to resolve the over three-and-half-year-old border row in eastern Ladakh that saw both sides agreeing to maintain "peace and tranquillity" on the ground but there was no indication of any breakthrough.

At that meeting, the Indian side strongly pressed for resolution of the lingering issues at Depsang and Demchok, people familiar with the matter said, adding there was no tangible forward movement in the talks. The MEA had then said the two sides agreed to maintain communication on the way ahead through the relevant military and diplomatic mechanisms.

India’s priorities in SCO are shaped by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of a ‘SECURE’ SCO. SECURE stands for Security, Economic cooperation, Connectivity, Unity, Respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, and Environmental protection. India, under its first-ever presidency of SCO, hosted the 23rd meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State on July 4, 2023 in virtual format.