India said Monday that the most important challenge faced by countriesbelonging to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is cross-borderterrorism.

Addressing a virtual meeting of the SCO Heads of Government, Vice PresidentM. Venkaiah Naidu said “terrorism is truly the enemy of humanity. It is ascourge we need to collectively combat.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khanskipped the meeting.

“We remain concerned about threats emerging from ungoverned spaces and areparticularly concerned about states that leverage terrorism as aninstrument of state policy. Such an approach is entirely against the spiritand ideals and the Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” saidNaidu, in an apparent reference to Pakistan.

It marked the first time a summit-level meeting was held under India’schairmanship since it gained full membership in the organization in 2017.The summit is held annually at the level of prime ministers of the SCO anddeals primarily with the trade and economic agenda of the organization.

In another reference to Pakistan, Naidu said: “It is unfortunate to notethat there have been attempts to deliberately bring bilateral issues intothe SCO and blatantly violate the well-established principles and norms ofthe SCO Charter safeguarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity ofSCO Member States.”

“Such acts are counterproductive to the spirit of consensus and cooperationthat define the SCO as an organization,” he added.

India assumed the chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of Government onNov. 2, 2019 as per rotation from the previous Chair, Uzbekistan.

The SCO has eight members – India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan,Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. There are also four observer states:Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia