PM Modi Attends 26th SCO Summit at Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic

Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined the 26th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on 1 September 2026. The venue was Bishkek, capital of the Kyrgyz Republic. The meeting ran over two days and had opened on 31 August. This is the SCO's 25th anniversary year, so the leaders first looked back at what the grouping has built and then turned to the next quarter century.

The S-C-O formula India pressed

India's vision for the grouping rests on three pillars, and their initials spell the organisation's own short name. S is for Security. C is for Connectivity. O is for Opportunity. The Prime Minister had placed these before the previous summit. At Bishkek he asked that they now be carried from vision to measurable outcomes.

On security he said terror remains a grave danger to all of humanity. Reacting to each attack is not enough, he argued; the money, the recruitment, the radicalisation and the safe havens that feed it must be pulled down together. He said no country may apply double standards on this question, and that terror can never serve anyone as a strategic asset. He tied a peaceful Eurasia to stability in Afghanistan and recalled the development and humanitarian help India sends there. He also welcomed the new SCO centres being set up against organised crime, narcotics and threats to information security.

On connectivity he said India backs projects that join markets and widen trade, so long as they respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of every country. On opportunity he said the real test of the grouping is how many openings young people, entrepreneurs and farmers actually gain from it.

What the summit adopted

Those papers covered climate, nuclear safety, energy conservation and the fight against drug addiction. Four proposals India led or backed found a place in the declaration: English as an official language in the SCO Charter, the Civilisational Dialogue Forum, the Young Scientists Forum and the Young Authors Conclave. India will host the first Civilisational Dialogue Forum later this year. The Prime Minister thanked President Sadyr Japarov for the hospitality and for running the summit well.