India’s Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) national coordinator Alok Amitabh Dimri on Wednesday said the grouping offers an important platform for its member states to strengthen regional connectivity, trade and transit while bringing their diverse civilisational voices to the world.Speaking to a Pakistani news channel on the sidelines of the SCO national coordinators’ meeting in Islamabad, Dimri said Pakistan’s chairmanship had brought the organisation’s rotating presidency into India’s neighbourhood and civilisational space.“This is an important occasion,” Dimri said, noting that the SCO presidency had moved from Bishkek to Islamabad and that the grouping brought together countries spanning the Eurasian and Asian landmass.He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also called for a Civilisation Dialogue Forum within the SCO, with the organisation’s leaders agreeing in Bishkek to establish such a platform. The decision to hold the forum in New Delhi on November 20, he said, would provide another opportunity for SCO members to engage with each other’s civilisational traditions and perspectives.Dimri said the SCO had evolved as a platform where member states could work together on an agenda centred on their “well-being, prosperity and welfare”, with regional connectivity, trade and transit among the key issues being discussed.

