The 7th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) concluded in Bishkek on Thursday after issuing a joint communique on multilateral relations and major international issues of common concern.

 

Chinese President Hu Jintao, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmonov and Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov attended the one-day meeting.

 

During the summit, the leaders agreed on further developing all-round cooperation within the SCO framework and exchanged in an in-depth way views on the current regional and international issues, the communique said.

 

Anti-terrorism

 

With the cooperation among legislative bodies and supreme courts becoming ever-important, SCO member states should actively carry out information exchange in the legislative area, it said.

 

The regional anti-terror institution has played an active part in combating terror-related actions, and the function of its council and executive committee has been further boosted, which in turn helped elevate the body's status in regional and international anti-terror cooperation, the leaders added.

 

Fight against financing terrorism and money laundering should be intensified, and it is extremely important to implement the SCO's cooperation deal on combating terrorism, separatism and extremism between 2007 and 2009, the leaders stressed.

 

Regional stability

 

At the summit, the SCO leaders emphasized the necessity and urgency of taking precautionary measures and establishing relevant mechanisms to tackle threats against regional peace, security and stability.

 

They agreed to step up efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, drug trafficking, terrorism. The leaders also discussed the possibility of the SCO taking bigger part in the Afghanistan affairs, to contribute more to regional security and stability.

 

Economic cooperation

 

The leaders pointed out that the economic cooperation within the SCO framework is being effectively implemented in various areas, including energy, transportation, telecommunications and other projects, the joint communique said.

 

In the cooperation process, the businessmen committee and bank combo should play a significant role, and the SCO welcomes the two to sign various cooperation agreements.

 

The leaders reiterated the importance of energy cooperation among the SCO members and hoped they would hold common ground on the issue. The energy mechanism should be open to all countries and organizations which agree with the SCO's tenets and tasks, the leaders said.

 

They also noticed the importance of environment protection and the reasonable use of natural resources, the communique mentioned.

 

International exchanges

 

The leaders commented positively on the international exchanges that the SCO has had with other countries and organizations, noting the importance of further strengthening concrete cooperation with SCO observers in various fields.

 

SCO member countries will continue to work for the completion of SCO legal framework to enable it to explore more international exchanges.

 

The SCO should deepen concrete cooperation with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Eurasian Economic Community (EEC), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the basis of current memos of understanding, the SCO leaders pledged.

 

They support the SCO to establish relations with other collective security treaty organizations in order to coordinate moves in protecting regional and international security, and facing new threats and challenges together.

 

Leaders or representatives from the SCO's observer countries --Mongolia, Pakistan, Iran and India -- also attended the summit.

 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and United Nations Under-Secretary-General B. Lynn Pascoe attended the summit as guests of the host country.

 

Founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001, the SCO groups China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

 

The next SCO summit meeting will be held in 2008 in Tajikistan's capital of Dushanbe, with Tajikistan holding presidency of the organization.

 

The ninth SCO summit meeting will be held in 2009 in the Russian city Jekaterinburg, the joint communique said.

 

(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2007)