The external affairs ministry on Tuesday announced that the 22nd summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) council of heads of state will be held in virtual mode and not in person in New Delhi as had been indicated earlier.

The meeting, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s chairmanship, will be held on July 4, the ministry said. No explanation was forthcoming from the ministry on why the meeting has become virtual when only earlier this month external affairs minister S. Jaishankar had said it would be held in New Delhi.

In his opening remarks at the SCO foreign ministers' meeting in Goa on May 5, Jaishankar had said: "I once again wholeheartedly thank you for your support to the first-ever SCO presidency of India and sincerely hope that we can together make the SCO heads of state summit meeting in New Delhi a great success.’’

The last SCO summit was held in Samarkand and was an in-person meeting.

According to the external affairs ministry, all the SCO member states — China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — have been invited to the summit. In addition, Iran, Belarus and Mongolia have been invited as observer states. According to SCO tradition, Turkmenistan has also been invited as the guest of the Chair.

With Russia and China members of the G20 also, the sudden change in format of the SCO meeting could have been taken factoring in the fact that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping would have to make a second trip to India this year for the September G20 meeting.

From the point of view of domestic politics, the Modi government would be ill at ease hosting Xi and Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif given the state of bilateral relations.