DUSHANBE, June 25, Asia-Plus — The Kyrgyz capital city of Bishkek hosts the next session of the council of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) defense ministers.
According to the Tajik ministry of defense (MoD), Defense Minister, Colonel-General Sherali Khairulloyev will represent Tajikistan at the meeting.
The source at a MoD said that security cooperation in the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will be focus of the meeting in Bishkek.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an intergovernmental organization, which was founded on June 15, 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; after the inclusion of Uzbekistan in 2001, the members renamed the organization.
The Shanghai Five grouping was originally created 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. April 24, 1997 the same countries signed the Treaty on Reduction of Military Forces in Border Regions in a meeting in Moscow.
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.
The SCO is primarily centered around its member nations” Central Asian security-related concerns, often describing the main threats it confronts as being terrorism, separatism and extremism.
