India, Pak to carry out military drills as part of multi-nation exercise

New Delhi: In a first, arch-rivals India and Pakistan will be part of a multi-nation counter-terror exercise in Russia in September, which will also be joined by China and several other countries.

The military exercise will take place under the framework of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a China-dominated security grouping which is increasingly seen as a counterweight to NATO, officials said.

They said the military drill would be held in the Ural mountains of Russia and almost all SCO member countries will be part of it.

They said the primary aim of the exercise, Peace Mission, will be to enhance counter-terror cooperation among the eight SCO member countries. The officials said Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman confirmed India's participation in the exercise during a meeting of SCO Defence Ministers' meeting in Beijing last week. It will be for the first time since Independence that India and Pakistan will both be part of a military exercise, though the armies of the two nations have worked together in UN peacekeeping missions, they said.

The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.