Bishkek/New Delhi — Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to undertake a four-day visit to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, during which he will also hold bilateral meetings with leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on the margins of the regional summit, according to official briefings reported by The Hindu.
The itinerary places Modi in two Central Asian republics that have become focal points of India’s expanding diplomatic engagement in the region, particularly in connectivity, energy, and security cooperation. The inclusion of bilateral meetings with SCO leaders signals New Delhi’s intent to use the multilateral platform for substantive bilateral diplomacy, a pattern that has characterised India’s approach to recent summits of the grouping.
What happened
According to the briefing reported by The Hindu, Russian President Vladimir Putin is among the leaders with whom the Prime Minister is expected to hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit. The visit comes ahead of the SCO summit, which brings together the heads of state and government of the eight full members — India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan — along with observer states and dialogue partners.
Indian officials have, in recent SCO cycles, used the summit venue to schedule standalone engagements with leaders whose relations with New Delhi require either reaffirmation or recalibration. The practice has drawn both scrutiny and appreciation, with critics noting that the sheer volume of bilateral pull-asides can dilute the multilateral agenda, and supporters arguing that the gathering remains one of the few settings where India’s leadership can engage simultaneously with a wide cross-section of Eurasian counterparts.
The two host countries, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, occupy distinct positions within India’s Central Asia calculus. Uzbekistan, the most populous country in the region, is a critical partner for India’s nuclear fuel supply, with Indian companies holding stakes in uranium mines, and has been a key node in the Chabahar port-international north-south transport corridor (INSTC) connectivity discussions. Kyrgyzstan, landlocked and mountainous, has been a growing market for Indian pharmaceutical exports and a participant in capacity-building programmes run under Indian technical and economic cooperation frameworks.
Why it matters
India-Russia ties, which have come under renewed scrutiny since the onset of the Ukraine conflict and India’s continued engagement with Moscow on energy and defence, remain a key reference point in New Delhi’s external balancing. India has emerged as one of the largest buyers of Russian crude oil since 2022, and the two countries continue to cooperate on military hardware, including the production of advanced systems under licence.
A reported Modi-Putin meeting would be the highest-level in-person engagement between the two leaders since the previous SCO summit cycle and would occur against a backdrop of intensifying pressure on India — from European partners and sections of the United States Congress — over the purchase of discounted Russian energy. Any readout from the bilateral will be parsed for signals on whether India is adjusting, holding firm, or recalibrating its posture.
Beyond Russia, the visit also matters because of the optics of sustained Indian prime ministerial engagement with a region where China’s footprint — through the Belt and Road Initiative, security partnerships, and bilateral trade — has grown markedly over the past decade. India has historically been described by analysts as a latecomer to Central Asia, in part because of the geographical barrier posed by Pakistan, which sits between Indian territory and the rest of the region. Recent Indian initiatives, including the Chabahar port development in Iran and the proposed India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), are partly aimed at closing that gap.
Background and context
Modi’s planned meetings in Central Asia come at a moment of intensifying competition among major powers — including China, Russia, the United States, and Turkey — for influence in the resource-rich region. Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan together sit on significant reserves of uranium, gold, and hydrocarbons, and both have pursued multi-vector foreign policies that allow them to engage simultaneously with Beijing, Moscow, Washington, and regional players like Ankara and Tehran.
For India, sustained high-level engagement with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan serves both economic interests and strategic ones, as New Delhi seeks to maintain access and relationships in a neighbourhood where its footprint has historically been lighter than that of Beijing or Moscow. India’s nuclear energy programme depends in part on Uzbek uranium, and the two countries signed a long-term supply agreement framework in earlier years. Indian firms, including state-run uranium exploration entities, have continued to operate in Uzbekistan.
Kyrgyzstan, for its part, has been a participant in India’s ITEC (Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation) programme, which offers training slots to officials from partner countries, and has hosted Indian-funded projects in the health and education sectors. Bilateral trade between India and Kyrgyzstan remains modest compared with India’s trade with Kazakhstan, but has been growing in pharmaceuticals, tea, and machinery.
The SCO itself, founded in 2001 by China, Russia, and the Central Asian states, was expanded in 2017 to include both India and Pakistan as full members. The grouping has long struggled with internal coherence, particularly on issues of regional security and counterterrorism, where member states’ positions often diverge. India has used the platform to press concerns about Pakistan-based terrorism, sometimes with limited public success, while also engaging on connectivity and trade facilitation measures.
The reported bilateral with Putin will likely draw close attention given the geopolitical backdrop. India has so far resisted Western pressure to dilute its relationship with Russia, while simultaneously deepening defence ties with Washington and European partners. The optics and substance of any Modi-Putin interaction will be read accordingly by multiple audiences — in New Delhi, in European capitals, in Washington, and in Moscow.
Analysis:
Whether the Prime Minister secures any substantive deliverables on connectivity, trade, or counterterrorism cooperation from the SCO platform will be a key measure of the trip’s success beyond the symbolic value of high-level meetings.
The Central Asian leg of the trip also carries an institutional dimension. India chairs or co-chairs several SCO working groups and expert bodies, and the visits provide an opportunity to push technical-level cooperation on areas such as disaster resilience, digital public infrastructure, and small business linkages — all areas where India has claimed leadership in other multilateral fora.
The Russia bilateral, separately, will be watched for any movement on rupee-rouble settlement mechanisms for trade, on the timeline for delivery of remaining S-400 air defence systems, and on the status of long-stalled negotiations over additional military platforms. None of these topics is expected to produce a public breakthrough, but the signalling value of any reference to them in joint statements will be closely read.
What to watch next
Several indicators will help assess the trip’s outcomes once the visit concludes.
First, the joint statement or press briefing following the Modi-Putin meeting, if one takes place, will be parsed for language on Ukraine, on energy, and on defence. Any softening, hardening, or even notable silence on these points will be read as a signal.
Second, the deliverables announced from the Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan legs — including any signed agreements on uranium, connectivity, or training programmes — will offer a measure of how concretely India’s “extended neighbourhood” approach is being operationalised.
Third, the behaviour of other SCO leaders, particularly Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Central Asian hosts, on the margins of the summit will indicate whether the multilateral setting can produce joint language on counterterrorism or regional security, or whether those discussions, as in past cycles, are deferred.
Finally, follow-up engagements — including reciprocal visits by Uzbek and Kyrgyz leaders to New Delhi, and the pace of movement on Chabahar-related transit arrangements — will indicate whether the trip marks the start of an accelerated engagement cycle or remains a routine high-level exchange.
Conclusion
Modi’s four-day Central Asia visit, framed around the SCO summit and bilateral meetings with member-state leaders including Putin, reflects India’s continuing effort to translate its rhetorical commitment to the “
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Story synopsis gathered from: The Hindu – National — source
