1. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of State will hold its annual summit on June 15, 2006, in Shanghai, the city where the organisation was founded five years ago, and where, ten years ago (April 1996) the countries that went on to form the SCO signed the Agreement on Military Confidence-Building Measures in the Border Area, which became the starting point for establishing a multilateral grouping to play a qualitatively new role in international communication.
The SCO developed out of the unique experience of finding unprecedented solutions in Asia to the complex issues of security and building confidence between countries. At the same time, solutions were found to border issues.
2. As it prepares to mark its tenth anniversary, the SCO has become a mature international organisation that plays an increasingly important role not only in the Asia-Pacific Region but at global level.
The Shanghai summit is a major event that will evaluate the organisation’s activities over the last decade, examine the implementation of the decisions made at the last summit in Astana (July 2005), identify the current issues facing the organisation and set clear guidelines for its future activities. The heads of state of the countries with observer status in the SCO – India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan – have been invited to the summit. Also invited are the President of Afghanistan, as a guest of the presiding country, and representatives of the international organisations with whom the SCO has established working relations and contacts.
3. The organisation has made consistent progress over the last year towards carrying out the aims and objectives set out in the SCO Charter. Measures at various levels have been carried out to give concrete substance to political, economic and humanitarian cooperation and to work together in the fight against new threats and challenges. Implementing the Tashkent initiative of 2004 to develop a network of partnership ties between the multilateral groupings in the Asia-Pacific Region, the SCO has established working contacts with various structures including the CIS and ASEAN in 2005 and the Eurasian Economic Community in 2006. Cooperation agreements are due to be signed now with other organisations and forums such as the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, UNDP, ESCAP and APEC.
4. The summit will focus on further consolidating the organisation and expanding its capacity to resolve the problems facing the Central Asian region through joint efforts.
These ideas are reflected in the summit’s draft final documents – the SCO Fifth Anniversary Declaration, the Statement on International Information Security (a new item on the organisation’s agenda that was introduced at Russia’s initiative) and the joint information communiqué.
5. In accordance with the instructions issued by the 2005 SCO summit on increasing the role of the organisation’s headquarters, a new draft of the Provisions on the SCO Secretariat has been prepared. According to this new draft, the secretariat is responsible for coordinating the organisation’s activities, providing the information and analysis, legal, financial and organisational support required for the organisation’s activities and overseeing the implementation of the decisions reached by its bodies. The title of the organisation’s senior official is to be changed from executive secretary to secretary-general of the SCO and the scope of his responsibilities is to be expanded. This should give new impetus to the organisation’s overall work and raise the effectiveness of its standing bodies in light of the increasingly important tasks facing the organisation.
The heads of state will approve a new secretary-general for the SCO for the period from 2007–2009 (in accordance with the rotation principle the post will be given to a representative of Kazakhstan), and will make a number of other personnel decisions.
6. Guaranteeing stability and security in the face of new threats and challenges has traditionally been at the centre of attention at SCO summits. New agreements will be approved in Shanghai that expand the organisation’s potential to counter the threats and challenges of the twenty-first century, including by carrying out measures for joint SCO reaction to situations that threaten peace, stability and security in the region.
In particular, the summit is expected to see the signing of an agreement on procedures for organising and carrying out joint anti-terrorist measures on the territories of the SCO member states, an agreement between the SCO member states on cooperation in identifying and closing channels by which persons involved in terrorist, separatist and extremist activity can enter the territory of SCO member states, and an agreement between the member states on technical protection for information at the organisation’s Regional Anti-Terrorist Centre.
The summit documents will reflect the common opinion on the need to step up the organisation’s work to combat drugs trafficking. The summit will give an impetus to setting up a coordinating anti-drugs trafficking mechanism within the SCO that will work together with the existing multilateral bodies working in this area in the region.
7. Particular attention at the summit will also be given to discussions on ongoing and consistent development of economic cooperation between the member states and expansion of their humanitarian cooperation.
Particular focus will be on intensifying ties in education. In this context, an agreement on cooperation in education will be signed at the summit.
A SCO Business Council, established on instruction by the heads of state of the member countries to increase potential for developing trade and economic cooperation, will hold its founding session during the summit. The heads of state will hold a brief meeting with representatives of the Business Council. The Business Council seeks to get business and financial circles involved in economic cooperation. Furthermore, the banks party to an inter-bank agreement within the SCO will sign their Work Programme for supporting regional economic cooperation in the presence of the heads of state.
One of the tasks of the Shanghai summit is to help transform humanitarian cooperation into one of the main areas of the organisation’s activity. In addition to cultural and education cooperation, attention will also be given to developing sport, tourism and youth ties.
8. The summit will focus closely on the situation in Central Asia in the context of the organisation’s continued consolidation. The SCO is able to act independently to resolve problems arising in the region of its responsibility, but at the same time it seeks to work together on an equal basis with the different forces outside the region. The organisation is not in competition with anyone, but it can reach solutions to problems on its own and without prompting from the sidelines.
9. The Shanghai summit will confirm the policy of developing practical cooperation with the organisation’s observer states and will affirm its readiness to work closely together with them, including on issues such as the fight against terrorism and other modern threats and challenges, combating drugs trafficking and developing economic and humanitarian cooperation. The summit will emphasise the member states’ common view that they first need to build up the relevant cooperation experience before looking at the question of expanding the organisation’s membership or taking in new observers.
10. During the SCO summit, President Vladimir Putin will hold a number of bilateral meetings: with President of China Hu Jintao, President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Pakistan Pervez Musharaf and President of Mongolia Nambaryn Enkhbayar.