SCO anti-terror center to be officially launched
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-06-01 11:39

The regional anti-terror center of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is to be officially launched at a summit in June in Tashkent, a Chinese diplomat said in Beijing Tuesday.

"The launch of the SCO organ indicates that the SCO has entereda new development stage", said Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Li Hui at a press briefing. Chinese President Hu Jintao will attend the summit.

An agreement on the establishment of the center was signed by SCO members in June 2002 at the St. Petersburg summit, which aims to facilitate cooperation between the six member states in their fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism. According to the SCO Charter, the regional anti-terror agency is a standing body with its headquarters in Uzbekistan's capital of Tashkent.

All heads of the SCO member countries will attend the summit scheduled for June 17, and representatives from the United Nations,European Union, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States will be present at the launching ceremony of the anti-terror center, Li said.

The secretariat of the SCO was launched in January in Beijing, said Li, adding the launch of the two SCO permanent organs marks that the SCO has ended its primary stage and entered its new stageof substantial cooperation.

Li said the summit is aimed to fix on the SCO's future development orientation, outline its concrete cooperation in various fields and further promote its role in international and regional issues.

The SCO heads of state will underline their cooperation in diplomacy, security, economy, transportation and culture, and signa declaration, said Li. All SCO members will carry out anti-drug cooperation, and ink an agreement on cracking down on narcotic, mental medicine, Li added.

An ordinance on the SCO observer, a new legal document on its foreign relations, will be ratified at the summit, which is expected to facilitate its external relations, said Li.

In the past three years, the SCO has focused on its basic and legal construction and so far established 12 meeting mechanisms including meetings of its heads of state, Li said.

The SCO, which groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, was formally established in June 2001 and grew out of efforts in the 1990s to strengthen confidence-building measures in the Central Asian border regions and fight regional terrorism, religious extremism and separatism.

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