The foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation will meet in Dushanbe on 25 July ahead of an SCO summit, due in August at the same venue. Briefing reporters on the Dushanbe meeting’s agenda, Andrei Nesterennko, the Foreign Ministry’s official spokesman, said the ministers would discuss international contacts and the expansion of the SCO, proceeding from its openness to broad and mutually profitable cooperation with other countries and international structures. The Afghan issue will receive special attention since Afghanistan remains the main source of drug and terrorist threats to the SCO member-states. Also, the ministers will exchange views on various aspects of the situation in the region and in the world.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is a multi-functional non-bloc regional association comprising Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. It’s not a military alliance and doesn’t threaten anyone. The SCO is open to cooperation with all international structures that share its goals, namely maintaining regional peace and stability; expanding mutual trade, economic, humanitarian, and cultural ties; the mutual enrichment of national cultures and traditions; and coordinated efforts in answering new challenges and threats such as international terrorism, religious fanaticism, ethnic separatism, drug trafficking, and arms smuggling… goals that are worthy of respect and have earned the SCO worldwide recognition. It has observer status in the United Nations and established close business contacts with the ASEAN, the European Union, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, and other international organizations. Mongolia, India, Iran, and Pakistan are associate members in the SCO. Accession criteria are currently being reviewed to provide for the admission of new members.
23 July 2008
Albert Papoyan
Voice of Russia World Service
http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=30044&cid=56&p=23.07.2008 (in English)
Editor’s Note:
Russian scuttlebutt has it that Russia wishes to give full-member status to Iran, then, Russia and the PRC can give overt security guarantees to prevent threatened US and Israeli strikes there. Such military action is foolhardy in the extreme and pointless, and proposed strikes have been criticised by such responsible US figures as former UN Ambassador John Bolton and Admiral Michael Mullen (the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff). Neither one of these men is a rad-lib wussy (for their bravery in speaking out, they deserve to be called MEN, in all-caps).
Bush and Rice must be restrained from juvenile bomb-tossing here. The consequences are too horrific to contemplate…
