Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to travel to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan this week, with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Samarkand positioned as the centerpiece of a diplomatic push aimed at deepening India’s engagement across Central Asia. In a statement issued before his departure, Modi said India would work with SCO partners to free the region from terrorism, signalling that counter-terrorism cooperation will be a stated priority of New Delhi’s agenda at the summit.
Modi is also expected to use the visit to expand bilateral engagement with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, two countries with which India has maintained historical and cultural ties dating back decades. The trip is being framed by Indian officials as part of a broader effort to consolidate India’s regional standing through institutional forums, trade dialogue, and strategic coordination. The visit to the two Central Asian states follows a pattern of high-level Indian outreach to the region, which has gained momentum amid shifts in regional security dynamics and global energy markets.
What Happened
Modi announced that he would attend the SCO summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and hold bilateral meetings with the host leadership as well as with other visiting heads of state. The Prime Minister’s Office has indicated that counter-terrorism cooperation, regional connectivity, and trade will feature prominently on the Indian side’s agenda. Indian officials have also signalled that bilateral discussions with Uzbekistan and a subsequent stop in Kyrgyzstan are intended to advance specific deliverables, including possible announcements in the areas of trade, connectivity infrastructure, and cultural cooperation.
Why It Matters
The SCO summit offers Modi one of the few multilateral venues where India sits at the same table as both Russia and China, alongside the Central Asian republics, Iran, and Pakistan. New Delhi has used past SCO gatherings to articulate a counter-terrorism posture that distinguishes between state-sponsored and cross-border terrorism, a framing that has consistently drawn Pakistani pushback but aligned India with Russian and Chinese rhetoric on regional security. India’s continued insistence on a common counter-terrorism framework within SCO also reflects its long-standing position that the grouping cannot be treated as a security bloc unless it addresses terror operating from member-state territory.
The Central Asian leg carries independent significance. Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan sit along corridors that India has identified as strategically important for connectivity projects intended to link South Asia with Eurasian markets, bypassing traditional routes through Pakistan. Whether the visit yields concrete outcomes on trade access, transit arrangements, or energy cooperation will determine whether India’s “Connect Central Asia” policy, first articulated in 2012, produces measurable results more than a decade later.
Background and Context
India’s relationship with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has evolved considerably since the country was admitted as a full member in 2017, alongside Pakistan. The grouping, originally formed in 2001 by China, Russia, and the Central Asian states, has expanded its remit over the years to include cooperation on security, trade, and connectivity. India has used SCO platforms to press for action on terrorism emanating from Afghanistan and from Pakistan-based groups, while also attempting to expand the trade and investment dimensions of the bloc’s work.
India’s bilateral relationship with Uzbekistan has deepened since 2017, when the two countries elevated ties to a strategic partnership. Bilateral trade has grown, and Indian firms have participated in sectors including pharmaceuticals, energy, and information technology. Uzbekistan, in turn, has sought Indian investment as part of its broader economic reform programme. India and Kyrgyzstan, while less prominent in bilateral terms, share institutional links through educational exchanges and a smaller but consistent trade relationship, with Indian training programmes under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) framework running in Bishkek.
The two Central Asian republics also occupy a sensitive position in regional geopolitics. Both maintain working relationships with Moscow, Beijing, and Washington, and both have navigated the legacies of Soviet-era infrastructure and borders. For India, consistent engagement in the region is part of a broader effort to ensure that connectivity and energy projects originating in Central Asia do not leave Indian interests marginalised, particularly given the growing footprint of Chinese Belt and Road Initiative projects across the region.
Analysis
The SCO summit provides Modi a platform to publicly align India with a multilateral counter-terrorism framework, a position that has gained salience in New Delhi’s diplomatic messaging in recent years. India’s emphasis on collective action against terror at an SCO forum also positions the country alongside Russia and China, both of which have pushed their own security-centred agendas within the bloc. The alignment is tactical rather than ideological: India has resisted the bloc’s drift toward an explicitly anti-Western security architecture, while continuing to use SCO summits to extract commitments on counter-terrorism that it can cite in other diplomatic forums, including the United Nations.
The Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan legs of the trip reflect a longer-term recalibration of India’s “Connect Central Asia” policy, which has historically struggled to translate policy intent into sustained economic engagement. Indian trade with the region remains modest relative to the volume of Indian commerce with East Asia and the Gulf, and connectivity projects involving Indian investment, such as the Chabahar port arrangement with Iran and the International North-South Transport Corridor, have advanced slowly. A successful SCO visit would offer Modi the chance to announce incremental but visible deliverables, including possible agreements on digital public infrastructure, pharmaceutical exports, or training slots under Indian capacity-building programmes.
Modi’s itinerary also comes against the backdrop of broader geopolitical churn in Eurasia, where India has sought to balance relations with Russia, maintain dialogue with China, and expand partnerships with Central Asian states on energy, connectivity, and counter-terrorism. The SCO platform offers one of the few venues where all these conversations overlap. Whether India can leverage that overlap into concrete gains will depend on the quality of its bilateral engagements on the margins of the summit, and on the willingness of Central Asian partners to commit to projects that align with Indian strategic and economic interests.
What to Watch Next
Several developments will be worth tracking in the days surrounding the summit. First, the language of the final SCO declaration, particularly on terrorism and on connectivity, will indicate how far India has been able to shape the bloc’s joint statement. Second, any bilateral agreements signed during Modi’s stop in Samarkand or in Bishkek will signal the practical outcomes of the visit. Third, Modi’s interactions with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines will draw close attention, given ongoing questions about India’s position on the war in Ukraine and on border tensions with China. Fourth, announcements relating to the Chabahar port and to the International North-South Transport Corridor will indicate whether SCO processes are being used to advance connectivity projects in which India has invested political capital.
Conclusion
Modi’s visit to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, anchored by the SCO summit in Samarkand, is designed to advance three overlapping Indian priorities: a collective counter-terrorism posture within a multilateral forum, deeper bilateral ties with two strategically located Central Asian partners, and continued engagement with Russia and China on India’s own terms. The trip’s success will be measured less by the optics of the summit than by the concrete deliverables that emerge from bilateral negotiations on its margins. For New Delhi, the test will be whether the rhetoric of “Connect Central Asia” and a common front against terrorism can be translated into projects, trade flows, and security cooperation that outlast the summit’s closing ceremony.
Sources
Times of India – https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/will-work-with-sco-to-free-region-from-terror-pm-ahead-of-summit/articleshow/133619538.cms
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Story synopsis gathered from: Times of India – Top Stories — source
