The fourth conference of the Council of Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO) opened in Moscow on Wednesday, with the focus of
discussions being anti-terrorism and economic cooperation between
SCO member states.
Taking part in the meeting were the heads of government of
China, Russia and Central Asian states Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
China was represented by Premier Wen
Jiabao; Russia by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov; Kazakhstan by
Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov; Kyrgyzstan by Prime Minister
Feliks Kulov; Tajikistan by Prime Minister Akil Akilov; and
Uzbekistan by Deputy Prime Minister Uktur Tukhtamuradovich
Sultanov.
Mongolian Prime Minister Tsakhia Elbegdorj, Pakistani Prime
Minister Shaukat Aziz, Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, and
Iran's First Vice-President Parviz Dawoodi also attended the
conference for the first time as observers.
The SCO was founded in June 2001, and inaugurated an
Anti-Terrorist Center in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent in June
2004.
Prior to the conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin had a
meeting with the SCO prime ministers.
The SCO is gathering momentum and acquiring more and more
political weight, Putin was quoted as saying by the Itar-Tass news
agency.
The aggregate population of SCO member states and observer
countries exceeds three billion people. It is therefore only
natural that SCO decisions would influence the well-being of much
of the world. It is an important factor of world politics, Putin
noted.
Putin underlined that the SCO had realized all the tasks that it
had set five years ago when it was established.
The economic cooperation between the SCO member states is
assuming an increasing significance, Putin added, saying that it is
necessary to develop interaction within the SCO framework in the
economic and humanitarian spheres.
In the economics sphere, special attention has to be paid to
financial relations. Russia will welcome the SCO's plans to boost
cooperation between financial organizations, Putin said.?
(Xinhua News Agency October 27, 2005)