On June 15-16 this year the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov participated at the session of the Council of heads of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member-states in the city of Ekaterinburg of the Russian Federation, according to the Uzbekistan National News Agency.

The high-profile Summit took off early morning of June 16 with the heads-of-states-only session, which saw the participation of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov, President of the Russian Federation Dmitriy Medvedev, Chairman of the People’s Republic of China Hu Jintao, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev, President of the Kyrgyz Republic Kurmanbek Bakiev and President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmon, the report said.

During the talks the heads of states have had a detailed exchange of views on the processes ongoing in the region and the world. They have considered coordination and enhancement of the concerted efforts on mitigating the impact and overcoming the consequences of the global financial and economic crisis in the SCO member-states, ensuring and consolidating the financial and economic stability.

At the same time, the heads of states discussed the issues of cooperation in the sphere of strengthening security, and in particular, the struggle against such threats as terrorism, extremism, separatism, trafficking of arms and narcotic substances, and other types of transnational organized crime.

The presidents also considered the situation in Afghanistan as well as the issues of recovery of the war-shaken economy of the country. Dwelling on the said problem, President Islam Karimov has renewed his initiative in terms of establishing under UN auspices of the international mechanism – the 6+3 Contact Group – that would comprise of six states, immediately neighboring on Afghanistan, and the representatives of Russia, U.S. and NATO.

President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov said that it was extremely important to show full respect towards deep historical roots of the multinational people of Afghanistan, towards all confessions, traditional values of Islam, achieve based on consideration of all these factors the dialogue and necessary consensus inside Afghanistan.

Presidents discussed the issues of further development of SCO, bettering activity of its structures, extending cooperation with the member-states and regional structures.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization became one of the influential and powerful organizations with high potential that acts as comprehensively and deeply thought-out mechanism in developing the political, economic, humanitarian cooperation, as well as consolidating security and stability.

Having consolidated the mutual trust in political sphere the SCO participating states had reached the effective coordination of approaches towards regional and international issues.

For the SCO member-states the cooperation in the sphere of security has always been a priority. Therefore, on the eve of summits along with meetings of the representatives of social and economic complex the participating states also hold the sessions of security council secretaries, representatives of interior ministries, defense, on emergency situations and other special services.

The member-states pay a substantial attention towards the issues of economic cooperation. They consistently develop the program of long-term economic cooperation. The Business Council and SCO Banking Association jointly serve for the development of immediate contacts between the business circles and banking structures.

Nearly twenty specialized structures operate at the SCO. Alongside with Business Council and Banking Association there are special working groups on such spheres as customs, transit, information and telecommunication technologies, transport, road construction, logistics, agriculture and others.

The SCO member-states also develop the humanitarian cooperation. They regularly hold festivals, exhibitions and other cultural events. The cooperation in the area of medicine is important in the exchange of experience and coordination of combating the infectious diseases.

The session of the delegation-level Council of heads of states saw participation of the observer-countries – the Prime Minister of the Republic of India Manmohan Singh, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mahmud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari, the First Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia Norovyn Altanhuag, as well as President of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, who appeared at the summit as a guest.

During the talks the participants of the summit exchanged views on the issues of further development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, extending the trade-economic, scientific-technical and humanitarian cooperation with observer countries. Also, the heads of the SCO participating states and representatives of the observer-countries considered the international and regional situation, discussed cooperation in consolidating the financial, energy, information, ecological and food security.

On the outcomes of the Summit, the participants signed the SCO Ekaterinburg Declaration, Convention against terrorism and number of other decisions. The chairmanship at the SCO went to the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Ikboljon Soliev for the Information Agency “Jahon” in English

Print version | Send to friend | read 1216 times