The sixth meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's regional anti-terror agency council was held Wednesday in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, with fifteen anti-terror related documents being adopted.

According to reports from Tashkent, participants at the one-day meeting agreed that the SCO anti-terror agency has increasingly become an efficient mechanism in maintaining regional security.
 
Chinese Vice Minister of Public Security Meng Hongwei, who held the rotating council chairmanship, lauded the increasingly important role of the anti-terror agency in maintaining peace and stability of SCO members and throughout central Asia.

"We are satisfied with the direction of the agency's development and confident that the work to boost security among the SCO members will be a success," Meng told the meeting.

Meng also called for further strengthening of cooperation among law enforcement departments of member countries within the SCO framework, as well as for joint efforts to crack down on terrorism, separatism and extremism.

Participants adopted the 2005 work report of the SCO regional anti-terror agency.

They also signed 15 documents, including the document guiding SCO members' cooperation between 2007 and 2009 in the fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism.

The SCO, established in 2001 in the Chinese city of Shanghai, groups Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its regional anti-terror agency came into operation in Tashkent in June 2004.

(Xinhua News Agency March 30, 2006)