India meets with China, Russia before Central Asia forum

By KRUTIKA PATHI
Associated Press

PANAJI, India (AP) — India’s foreign minister has held talks with counterparts from China and Russia ahead of a meeting of a Central Asian security forum. Foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization began arriving Thursday in host India’s tourist hotspot Goa, where they’re expected to discuss deepening economic and security cooperation Friday. Pakistan, India’s archrival, is also a member of the forum. Its foreign minister is making the first visit by a high-ranking Pakistani official to India in nearly a decade. Russia and China founded the grouping in 2001 as a counterweight to U.S. alliances across East Asia to the Indian Ocean.