The 7th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO) concluded in Bishkek on Thursday
after issuing a joint communique on multilateral relations and
major international issues of common concern.
Chinese President Hu Jintao, Kazakhstan President Nursultan
Nazarbayev, Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiev, Russian
President Vladimir Putin, Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmonov
and Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov attended the one-day
meeting.
During the summit, the leaders agreed on further developing
all-round cooperation within the SCO framework and exchanged in an
in-depth way views on the current regional and international
issues, the communique said.
Anti-terrorism
With the cooperation among legislative bodies and supreme courts
becoming ever-important, SCO member states should actively carry
out information exchange in the legislative area, it said.
The regional anti-terror institution has played an active part
in combating terror-related actions, and the function of its
council and executive committee has been further boosted, which in
turn helped elevate the body's status in regional and international
anti-terror cooperation, the leaders added.
Fight against financing terrorism and money laundering should be
intensified, and it is extremely important to implement the SCO's
cooperation deal on combating terrorism, separatism and extremism
between 2007 and 2009, the leaders stressed.
Regional stability
At the summit, the SCO leaders emphasized the necessity and
urgency of taking precautionary measures and establishing relevant
mechanisms to tackle threats against regional peace, security and
stability.
They agreed to step up efforts to crack down on illegal
immigration, drug trafficking, terrorism. The leaders also
discussed the possibility of the SCO taking bigger part in the
Afghanistan affairs, to contribute more to regional security and
stability.
Economic cooperation
The leaders pointed out that the economic cooperation within the
SCO framework is being effectively implemented in various areas,
including energy, transportation, telecommunications and other
projects, the joint communique said.
In the cooperation process, the businessmen committee and bank
combo should play a significant role, and the SCO welcomes the two
to sign various cooperation agreements.
The leaders reiterated the importance of energy cooperation
among the SCO members and hoped they would hold common ground on
the issue. The energy mechanism should be open to all countries and
organizations which agree with the SCO's tenets and tasks, the
leaders said.
They also noticed the importance of environment protection and
the reasonable use of natural resources, the communique
mentioned.
International exchanges
The leaders commented positively on the international exchanges
that the SCO has had with other countries and organizations, noting
the importance of further strengthening concrete cooperation with
SCO observers in various fields.
SCO member countries will continue to work for the completion of
SCO legal framework to enable it to explore more international
exchanges.
The SCO should deepen concrete cooperation with the Commonwealth
of Independent States (CIS), the Eurasian Economic Community (EEC),
and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the basis
of current memos of understanding, the SCO leaders pledged.
They support the SCO to establish relations with other
collective security treaty organizations in order to coordinate
moves in protecting regional and international security, and facing
new threats and challenges together.
Leaders or representatives from the SCO's observer countries
--Mongolia, Pakistan, Iran and India -- also attended the
summit.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Turkmen President Gurbanguly
Berdymukhamedov and United Nations Under-Secretary-General B. Lynn
Pascoe attended the summit as guests of the host country.
Founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001, the SCO groups China,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The next SCO summit meeting will be held in 2008 in Tajikistan's
capital of Dushanbe, with Tajikistan holding presidency of the
organization.
The ninth SCO summit meeting will be held in 2009 in the Russian
city Jekaterinburg, the joint communique said.
(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2007)
