DUSHANBE, August 28, 2008, Asia-Plus — A summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has opened at Somon Palace in the Government Dacha in Dushanbe. The meeting is considering socioeconomic issue and fight against modern threats and challenges within the SCO area.
At present heads of member nations of the Organization are meeting to discuss cooperation issues and representatives of observer countries and Afghanistan will join them later.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an intergovernmental mutual-security organization which was founded in 2001 by the leaders of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Except for Uzbekistan, the other countries had been members of the Shanghai Five, founded in 1996; after the inclusion of Uzbekistan in 2001, the members renamed the organization.
The Shanghai Five grouping was originally created on April 26, 1996 with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions in Shanghai by the heads of states of Kazakhstan, the People”s Republic of China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. On April 24, 1997 the same countries signed the Treaty on Reduction of Military Forces in Border Regions at a meeting in Moscow. .
Subsequent annual summits of the Shanghai Five group occurred in Almaty, Kazakhstan in 1998, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 1999 and in Dushanbe in 2000.
In 2001, the annual summit returned to Shanghai, China. There, the five member nations first admitted Uzbekistan in the Shanghai Five mechanism (thus transforming it into the Shanghai Six). Then all six heads of state signed on June 15, 2001 the Declaration of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, praising the role played thus far by the Shanghai Five mechanism and aiming to transform it to a higher level of cooperation. In July 2001, Russia and the PRC, the organization’s two leading nations, signed the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation.
In June 2002, the heads of the SCO member states met in St. Petersburg, Russia. There they signed the SCO Charter which expounded on the organization’s purposes, principles, structures and form of operation, and established it officially from the point of view of international law.
According to the Charter of the SCO, summits of the Council of Heads of State shall be held annually at alternating venues. The locations of these summits follow the alphabetical order of the member state”s name in Russian. The charter also dictates that the Council of Heads of Government (that is, the Prime Ministers) shall meet annually in a place previously decided upon by the council members. The Council of Foreign Ministers is supposed to hold a summit one month before the annual summit of Heads of State. Extraordinary meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers can be called by any two member states.
