NEW DELHI: India will be represented at a summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) for the first time this year, with External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh set to join the deliberations of the six-nation grouping in Kazakhstan on Tuesday as a "guest."

The SCO, which is meeting this year in Astana, the Kazakh capital, links China and Russia with Central Asian republics except Turkmenistan.

Along with India, Pakistan and Iran will also participate in the summit as guests.

All three countries will formally be designated as Observers at the end of the summit, which will bring China President Hu Jintao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin together for the second time in as many weeks.

Pakistan will be represented by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. Mr. Singh, who will leave New Delhi on Monday morning, will return home on July 6.

The SCO was formally created in June 2001, though it dates back to an initiative taken by China in 1996. As a forum, its main preoccupations have been issues such as border control and terrorism, though in recent years, it has begun to assume an economic agenda as well.

The Ministry of External Affairs spokesman said India has "a deep interest in the activities of the SCO, right from its very inception." He said India believed it could cooperate in a substantial manner in the two major areas of activity of the SCO — combating terrorism and economic cooperation.

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