SCO members agree to work on unified list of terrorists, says foreign secretary

Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked all the member states of SCO for endorsing Varanasi as the first ever SCO tourist and cultural capital during the upcoming year 22-23, said foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra.

Foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra said an agreement was reached at the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on working towards developing a unified list of terrorists, separatists and extremist organisations whose activities are prohibited on the territories of the SCO member states. The summit was held at the historic city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan.

Kwatra, who accompanied Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the summit, said the PM thanked all the member states of SCO for endorsing Varanasi as the first ever SCO tourist and cultural capital during the upcoming year 22-23.

The ministry of external affairs soon after shared a clip describing the magnificence of the temple state. Varanasi is also Modi's parliamentary constituency.

India will take over the presidency of the eight-member SCO and will host the next summit.

"As a result #SCOSamarkandSummit, India will host next SCO summit as a chairman of Organisation in 2023. We will do our best to assist India, our strategic partner, in the implementation of this responsible mission," Uzbek foreign minister Vladimir Norov tweeted.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, who also attended the summit besides a host of other leaders like Russia's Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, congratulated India for taking over the rotating Presidency of the Beijing-based regional grouping.

"Here I wish to express China's congratulations to India on assuming the next SCO presidency. We will, together with other member states, support India during its presidency," Xi said at the summit.

(With inputs from agencies)