The senior Russian official pointed out that in addition to those meetings already agreed upon, it is not ruled out that the Russian president will hold other additional contacts on the sidelines of the event, TASS news agency reported.

According to Ushakov, Moscow sees the Astana summit as “an opportunity to organize bilateral contacts with the leaders of the countries that will be present there,” so the Russian leader’s agenda “includes a whole series of very important bilateral contacts.”

In particular, on July 3, on the eve of the beginning of the protocol events, the Russian president has already met with the presidents of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev; Mongolia, Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh; and Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He will also meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Shortly before the informal summit dinner, scheduled for the evening, participants will meet with Kazakh President Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev.

On July 4, Ushakov added, “there may be time to organize small, brief bilateral contacts,” among which talks with Iranian acting President Mohamed Mojber have already been agreed.

In general, the SCO events will also be attended by representatives of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkmenistan.

Delegates from international organizations will also be present, including the secretaries general of the United Nations, António Guterres; the Commonwealth of Independent States, Sergei Lebedev; and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Imangali Tasmagambetov, in addition to the leaders the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Islamic Food and Security Organization.

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