FILE - Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin look toward each other as they shake hands prior to their talks in Beijing, China, Thursday, May 16, 2024. Putin and Xi will meet Thursday for the second time in as many months as they attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.
An arrest warrant has been issued for him by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility forFor Putin, the meeting is about “prestige and the symbolic optics that he’s not alone,” Gabuev said. For host Kazakhstan and the other Central Asian nations, the meeting is a way to further their cooperation with bigger, more powerful neighbors. Kazakhstan, for instance, frequently engages with both neighboring Russia and China, while also pursuing links with the West, with visits this year from U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Cameron.Countering terrorism is a key focus.
This year, close Moscow ally Belarus will become a full member of the organization, and its admission indicates how Russia wants to bolster blocs of non-Western countries. Gould-Davies said the SCO is raising its profile “by growing its membership rather than by deepening its cooperation."China has backed Moscow amid the fighting in Ukraine, but at a meeting of the SCO in 2022, Putin referred to Beijing’s unspecified “concerns” over the conflict.
But because it's rare these days for any meeting to include the heads of Russia, China, Turkey and the U.N., the possibility of talks about the war might be raised, at least on the peripheries of the summit, probably behind closed doors.