Can the SCO mediate the India-Pakistan conflict?

The most recent conflict between India and Pakistan is pushing South Asia toward crisis. But it has also created a pivotal challenge for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which counts both countries among its members. Designed to promote regional stability and mutual trust, the SCO now finds itself under strain from within.

The question is whether the SCO can serve as more than a nominal gathering of major powers—and whether this crisis becomes a catalyst for the bloc to begin playing a more active role in intra-member dispute management.

At the margins of this equation sits Saudi Arabia. A dialogue partner to the SCO and a country with deep, balanced relationships with both India and Pakistan, Riyadh could emerge as a quiet—but consequential—player in any de-escalation effort. How the Kingdom positions itself, and whether the SCO can credibly contain tensions between its members, will shape perceptions of both actors moving forward.

Recent Fighting Threatens South Asian Stability

Tensions between India and Pakistan have sharply escalated following a deadly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, on April 22, which killed 26 civilians—mostly Indian tourists. The Resistance Front, a group tied to Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed responsibility. India quickly blamed Pakistan for harboring militants, a charge Islamabad denies. In retaliation, India launched “Operation Sindoor” on May 7, conducting air and missile strikes on nine locations in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, including sites allegedly linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. Pakistan reported civilian casualties and condemned the strikes as an “act of war.” Both sides have since engaged in aerial and drone exchanges, each claiming to intercept or down enemy drones and missiles.

The diplomatic fallout has been severe. India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, expelled Pakistani diplomats, and revoked key bilateral agreements. Pakistan has responded in kind, deepening the standoff. The international community—including the U.S. and United Nations—has called for restraint, warning of the grave risks of escalation between two nuclear-armed states. Analysts caution that without immediate de-escalation, the conflict risks spiraling into a broader regional crisis with catastrophic humanitarian and security implications.

A Fault Line at the Core

From the outset, the SCO’s inclusion of both India and Pakistan in 2017 was ambitious. It brought together two of Asia’s most intractable rivals into a bloc nominally committed to regional harmony and counterterrorism cooperation. Yet the move was always more aspirational than operational. While membership offered symbolic inclusion and opportunities for engagement, it also embedded a chronic bilateral fault line into the organization’s core.

That fault line has now reemerged. India’s strikes in Pakistan-administered territory—described by New Delhi as preemptive counterterrorism operations—represent a major breach of the informal norms that have allowed both countries to compartmentalize tensions during past SCO summits. With Islamabad threatening retaliation and diplomatic backchannels reportedly frozen, the bloc’s ability to keep its house in order is now in question.

Unlike NATO or even ASEAN, the SCO has no dispute-resolution mechanism, no binding security commitments, and no political structure capable of enforcing mediation. Its security agenda is broad—focused on counterterrorism, separatism, and extremism—but its tools for addressing conventional state conflict remain limited to rhetorical declarations and backroom diplomacy. This crisis is, therefore, both a bilateral issue and a test of institutional purpose.

Riyadh’s Calculated Position

While Saudi Arabia is not a full member, its status as an SCO dialogue partner places it in a useful, if informal, position. Crucially, it maintains strong ties with both parties.

India is central to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 economic transformation. Trade has surpassed $50 billion, anchored in energy, tech, and infrastructure deals. The Kingdom has actively courted Indian investment, while positioning itself as a long-term partner in regional connectivity and clean energy.

Pakistan, on the other hand, remains one of Saudi Arabia’s closest traditional allies. Defense cooperation and financial aid form the backbone of a strategic relationship that predates the SCO. Millions of Pakistani laborers in the Kingdom provide essential remittances to Islamabad, while Saudi support continues to play a critical role in Pakistan’s fiscal stability.

Riyadh has no interest in seeing either relationship deteriorate. Further escalation threatens economic exposure with India and political risk in Pakistan. It also undermines Saudi Arabia’s recent efforts to emerge as a credible diplomatic player, having hosted or supported negotiations in Sudan, Ukraine, and Yemen. This moment, then, is not just a geopolitical challenge—it’s an opportunity to demonstrate diplomatic agility.

A Role Within or Around the SCO?

Saudi Arabia may attempt to take on a more active diplomatic role in the India–Pakistan crisis and is reportedly already engaged in informal shuttle diplomacy. While India remains firmly opposed to third-party involvement in Kashmir, and Pakistan’s domestic volatility complicates coordinated outreach, these constraints do not preclude a more subtle, indirect approach—particularly if Riyadh operates within the broader SCO ecosystem.

The SCO offers Saudi Arabia a platform to engage both sides without appearing to overreach. Through quiet coordination with influential member states like China and Russia, Riyadh could help engineer an off-ramp that allows New Delhi and Islamabad to de-escalate without political cost. This could take the form of backchannel communications, coordinated statements of restraint, or support for technical-level dialogues—initiatives that align with the SCO’s cooperative ethos without challenging core sovereignty norms.

Crucially, Saudi Arabia’s role need not be framed as formal mediation. Instead, it can position itself as a stabilizing force—reinforcing the SCO’s commitment to regional peace while operating at the edges of official mechanisms. This kind of engagement reflects Riyadh’s broader foreign policy evolution: from reactive, transactional diplomacy to a more proactive, interest-driven role within multilateral settings.

The stakes of this crisis extend far beyond the subcontinent. For the SCO, its credibility as a security institution is on the line. Failure to even facilitate dialogue between two warring members would expose the limits of a bloc that aspires to serve as an anchor of non-Western order. Its ambitions risk appearing hollow if it cannot manage its own internal contradictions.

For Saudi Arabia, this is a moment of strategic definition. The Kingdom has increasingly cast itself as a responsible power in a fragmented global landscape—one that avoids entanglement, but steps in to mitigate instability. Handling this crisis effectively would demonstrate that Riyadh can safeguard its own interests while contributing meaningfully to collective crisis diplomacy.

Conclusion

In the end, the India–Pakistan crisis is pressure-testing the SCO—and, by extension, the credibility of multipolar institutions that claim to offer alternatives to Western-led frameworks. It is also challenging countries like Saudi Arabia to clarify what kind of actor they intend to be in this emerging global order.

If Saudi Arabia can help defuse tensions—whether through the SCO, in coordination with China, or via parallel diplomatic channels—it will underscore its ambitions as a serious and capable geopolitical player beyond the Middle East. But if the SCO remains absent, the crisis will raise a sharper question: what is the purpose of a regional security bloc that cannot contain conflict between its own members?