The Interaction Desk
The United States of America to establish its primacy which has been challenged by several states of the world is trying to destabilize many countries and trying to undermine Shanghai Cooperation Organization by flaming the conflict between Pakistan and India. When India and Pakistan were admitted to the SCO in 2017, political scientists and experts were divided into two camps; optimists and pessimists. Pessimists predicted that the admission of New Delhi and Islamabad to the organization would mean its end as India and Pakistan would bring their array of conflicts to the organization. Optimists, on the other hand, said that without India, and even without Pakistan, one cannot build a full-fledged system of stability in Eurasia, so there was no real question of whether to accept them or not. Let’s accept them, their logic went, and perhaps the parties will be imbued with what is called the Shanghai spirit of cooperation and mutual understanding, and they will decide to put all quarrels aside and together help build a prosperous and calm Eurasia. So, the two countries became members of the SCO. Now, after almost four years, it is clear that everyone was mistaken both pessimists and optimists. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is alive and well, but the Indian-Pakistani conflict has only worsened during this time in which USA played major part. Moreover, the dialogue on a number of issues, which had previously been successfully held within the SCO, has practically stopped; for example, on the fight against terrorism: if before, all interested parties effectively cooperated within the framework of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, now its work, if not paralyzed, then in any case has become significantly difficult. SCO rules require the Indian and Pakistani sides to exchange intelligence data in order to improve the fight against terror. This is quite difficult to do. It’s not even that Indian and Pakistani forces along the Line of Control in Kashmir were exchanging artillery strikes on an almost-monthly basis. It was stopped for a while and again India to hide its failure to face the covid-19, India accused Pakistan for cross border firing. Generally, Indians accuse the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of training and inserting militants in Kashmir to attack Indian soldiers and police officers, blow up government offices and shoot loyalists. The Pakistanis, rightly claim that numerous Indian intelligence services, most notably the Research & Analytic Wing (R&AW), are conducting subversive activities in Baluchistan, supplying the Baloch rebels with weapons and means to continue their guerrilla war. In theory, ISI and R&AW should exchange valuable information to prevent the growth of a terrorist tumor; it is clear that practically each side provides information in very limited doses and only on secondary issues, and mutual distrust is only growing.
The SCO plate form was quite good for such type of e activity to increase trust between the two countries but with the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), USA with full force came on the side of India to spoil such positive role of SCO. United States of America is fueling India against China, Russia and Pakistan. Russia has tried to some extent to cool down the tension between these two Asian countries. In general, the situation has worsened. When India and Pakistan were admitted to the SCO, relations between them were far from ideal, but now they even resemble a sluggish conflict. This is because of USA’s extensive support to India and to discredit SCO.