«SCO has turned not only into an influential international structure, but also became one of the determining factors of modern geopolitics».
Islam Karimov, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan
This year is 9 years since establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). During the passed period important practical steps were carried out as in the institutional formation of the Organization and strengthening of cooperation in political, economic, social and humanitarian fields between its Member-States. The most important aspects, which stipulated growing international prestige of SCO, are:
Firstly, timeliness and demand for establishment of SCO in Eurasian area, the urgency of problems, which are posed and solved by the Organization, where along with security issues, it stresses the importance of sustainable socio-economic development of its Member-States.
Secondly, SCO, being equal union of states, which have common borders, close historical and cultural, traditional political, economic and humanitarian ties, obviously demonstrates that its activities are not directed against interests of other countries and do not have block confrontational nature.
Thirdly, at the present stage particular importance acquires the fact that SCO, based on its principle, is emerging as a reliable guarantor of stability, as a deterrent factor, averting attempts of radical and extremist forces, various subversive and destructive centres, which can destabilize situation in the region and turn it into an arena of confrontation and antagonism.
The main foundation of SCO is the desire of six states – China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to resolve jointly issues of regional security and build confidence. It is no coincidence that apart from “Declaration on the establishment of SCO”, also “Shanghai Convention on combating terrorism, separatism and extremism” was signed at the Shanghai Summit on June 15, 2001. SCO Charter, adopted at the 2nd Summit of Heads of Member-States, became the legal foundation of the organization.
At that time the participants had already developed a new concept of security, which predetermined an increase of role and significance of the SCO in addressing regional and global security issues.
An important achievement was the establishment of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) of the SCO, the Executive Committee of which is functioning in Tashkent since 2004.
The main source of threats to the security in our region remains to be the war in Afghanistan that has been continuing for the past 30 years, where tensions and confrontation still have a tendency to exacerbate. It is impossible to talk about security and stability in the region without resolving this issue.
Uzbekistan is convinced that establishment of a Contact Group "6+3" under the aegis of the UN, consisting of plenipotentiary representatives of the states directly bordering with Afghanistan, and representatives of Russia, USA and NATO, would contribute to the earliest solution of this problem. Through this body a consent could be reached both inside and around Afghanistan.
Within the SCO framework, special attention is paid to developing cooperation in economy, trade and investment areas. In 2001 in Almaty a Memorandum was signed between the Member-States on the basic goals and directions of regional cooperation in these fields.
Program of multilateral trade and economic cooperation until 2020 was adopted, designed for creating most favorable conditions for trade and investment, effective use of regional resources and the gradual transition to free movement of goods, capital, services and technologies in the SCO area. Among the priority areas of cooperation, along with transport, telecommunications, banking sphere, the program identifies the interaction in the field of innovative technology, healthcare, agriculture, etc.
Uzbekistan advocates cooperation with all external partners, who support a dynamic, progressive and sustainable development of each state and the entire Central Asian region, as well as exclusion of any attempts to show here geopolitical competition and confrontation.
Mongolia, Pakistan, Iran and India have observer status at SCO, a Contact Group SCO-Afghanistan was established. Belarus and Sri Lanka received the dialogue partner status. Other states and regional organizations also show interest in the activities of SCO.
In accordance with the Tashkent initiative (June17, 2004) on the establishment of partnership relations between the SCO and the various organizations operating in Asia and the Asian-Pacific region, the SCO established contacts with the UN, ASEAN, CIS and EAEC (EurAsEC).
After the meeting of the Heads of SCO Member-States on 15-16 June 2009 in Yekaterinburg, the chairmanship of the Organization for the next period was passed to the Republic of Uzbekistan.
In the framework of its presidency in the SCO, Uzbekistan put forward a series of initiatives aimed at further improvement of the SCO’s activities, including intensification of cooperation with the UN, ASEAN and other international and regional organizations.
The Organization has observer status at the UN General Assembly.
During presidency of Uzbekistan in the SCO a resolution on “Cooperation between the UN and the SCO” was adopted at the 64th session of UN General Assembly on December 18, 2009 in New York.
On April 5, 2010 during the visit of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to Uzbekistan the Joint declaration on cooperation between secretariats of SCO and UN was signed in “Oqsaroy” Residence in the presence of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov.
The fifth meeting of Heads of Departments responsible for preventing and eliminating emergency situations and a meeting of Secretaries of Security Councils of the SCO Member-States were held on 21-23 April 2010 in Tashkent under the chairmanship of Uzbekistan.
Activities are being carried out for the preparation and holding of the Tashkent SCO summit in June and the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Member-States of the Organization in May 2010.
Currently, the work is under way to prepare draft Regulations for admission of new members to SCO, which, upon reaching a consensus, is planned to be submitted for approval by the Heads of Member-States during the upcoming summit of the Organization in Tashkent. It is also envisaged to consider proposals for further improvement of the SCO activity and other issues of mutual interest.
