Thursday's presidential summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, represents the dawn of the regional body's first harvest season.

The fruits of solidarity were rich and sweet for the six members: China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. That was evidenced by the piles of signed contracts and letters of intention on aid, exchange and partnership programs.

Distinct economic structures determine that each member's respective comparative advantages are highly supplementary, which means partnership between and among SCO members can address many practical issues and needs.

The agreements China and Uzbekistan inked on Tuesday on cooperation and exchanges in a number of fields, for instance, offered an example of what countries can do to support each other.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Uzbek President Islam Karimov provided a substantial backup for the agreements with a joint statement pledging to upgrade the partnership between the two countries.

Business deals are essential for SCO members' professed aspiration to make their relations "mutually beneficial." Their shared commitment to economic progress brewed both opportunities and demands for economic cooperation. But the SCO exists not only for economic concerns.

Preceding economic considerations are what the Chinese President termed "three evil forces" -- terrorism, extremism and separatism -- which prompted the idea of a regional mechanism.

All SCO members are victims of one or more of the three evil forces.

The Chechen Islamic separatists are notorious for terrorist attacks on innocent civilians in Russia. In March, serial terrorist blasts claimed almost 50 lives in Uzbekistan. The East Turkistan Movement, whose terrorist network has roots in Central Asia countries, is the culprit behind many merciless killings in Xinjiang, China.

Adding to the region's long list of casualties of terrorist operations was the loss of 11 Chinese lives on June 10 at a dormitory for civilian workers in Afghanistan.

The tragedy taught a bloody lesson that no country is free from the threat of terrorism.

In this sense, Thursday's inauguration of the SCO anti-terrorism center in Tashkent answered a more imperative need in the face of the area. We need such a mechanism to coordinate operations and share information.

The presence of Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the summit as an honorary guest signified SCO members' consensus to widen the defense network against terrorism.

It is good for all if SCO and Afghanistan join hands to establish a regional security mechanism in the fight against terror.

(China Daily June 18, 2004)