DUSHANBE, August 6, 2008, – Tajik President Emomali Rahmon said a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) later this month in the Tajik capital Dushanbe will be a fulfilling, fruitful meeting.
At the gathering of the SCO council of heads of state on August 28, the leaders will issue a declaration about their common stance on the current major international issues, review the progress of work made since the last summit, and draw up a plan for further cooperation, President Emomali Rahmon said in a recent interview with Chinese media.
With joint efforts by its member states, the SCO has basically finished its founding phase and has in recent years developed into an organization that can safeguard regional security and stability, he said.
The SCO has become an important element of current international relations, a powerful, responsible partner with broad prospects in Asia, said the president.
“It is hard now to imagine what the world will be like without the SCO,” said Rahmon whose country holds the rotating SCO presidency.
The foundation of the SCO is a new security concept of mutual security, non-alliance, non-confrontation and not being directed against any third party, said Rahmon.
The SCO members have been committed to strengthening security cooperation rather than building a military alliance, which gives rise to a new type of international relations competently free of cold-war thinking, he said.
The organization has become increasingly appealing to its international partners, and more and more countries and international organizations have expressed their willingness to cooperate with the SCO, he said.
Meanwhile, the president said he was confident about the prospect of the SCO”s development, noting that the combined area of the SCO member states accounts for 61 percent of the Euro-Asia continent and the SCO”s population makes up one fourth of the world”s population.
“The SCO could become an inalienable part of the global security system and the center of the world”s economic development,” he said.
Rahmon said the SCO should kick off its mechanism of “dialogue partners,” strengthening its cooperation with the observer nations on such sectors as economy, energy, and banking.
The SCO, founded in 2001, groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The SCO accepted Mongolia as an observer to the organization in 2004 and offered observer status to Pakistan, Iran and India in 2005.
Rahmon said the SCO is ready for more active, effective cooperation. The member nations should pay more attention to expanding trade cooperation and exploring the vast market potential within the regional bloc while keeping as priority the fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism, drug trafficking, organized cross-border crime and illegal immigration, said the president.
The establishment of the SCO Bank Syndicate in 2005 and the SCO Entrepreneurs” Committee in 2006 is a key step forward for multilateral cooperation, he said.
“Tajikistan highly values the SCO and considers the cooperation within the SCO framework as one of the priorities in the country”s diplomatic policies,” said the president.
“Tajikistan will be actively engaged in economic and other joint projects with the SCO,” he said.
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon said a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) later this month in the Tajik capital Dushanbe will be a fulfilling, fruitful meeting, Xinhua reported.
