On 17-19 January 2023, India chaired a hybrid meeting of the Council of National Coordinators of the SCO Member States in Varanasi, the Republic of India. Deputy SCO Secretary-General Janesh Kain headed the delegation of the SCO Secretariat.
SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming spoke at the opening ceremony. (full text of his remarks).
The meeting participants discussed over 30 topical issues on the SCO agenda, including preparations for meetings of the SCO Heads of State Council and the SCO Foreign Ministers Council in 2023, the 2023 calendar of events during the presidency of India and Kazakhstan in the SCO, as well as other aspects of current SCO activities.
According to resolution No. 13 of the SCO’s Samarkand summit (2022), participants in the meeting of the SCO Council of National Coordinators declared Varanasi in the Republic of India as the tourism and cultural capital of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2022-2023.
