Jiang Arrives in St. Petersburg for SCO Summit

Chinese President Jiang Zemin arrived in St. Petersburg Wednesday to attend the second summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) scheduled for Friday.

Jiang flew in from Almaty, Kazakhstan, where he attended the first summit meeting of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA).

The SCO was established in Shanghai last year by China, Russia,Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and the presidents of the six member countries had their first summit meeting there. The SCO is aimed at encouraging regional cooperation and coordinating the fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism.

A series of ministerial meetings of the SCO were held this year in preparation for the upcoming summit. Chinese Foreign Ministry said earlier this month that the presidents of the six member countries are expected to sign three documents to consolidate the structure of the organization.

(Xinhua News Agency June 6, 2002)