The Hindu : 'Shanghai group for regional security'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 02, 2003

International

International

'Shanghai group for regional security'

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW MAY 1. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) could be established as a full-fledged regional security body by the end of the year, the Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, has said after the ministerial meeting of the group.

The Foreign Ministers of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan met in Almaty, Kazakhstan, to finalise a set of SCO's institutional documents to be approved by at an SCO summit in Moscow on May 28-29. The documents define the status of SCO's working bodies, including the councils of Heads of State, Heads of Government and Foreign Ministers. The SCO meeting sought to refocus international attention on the situation in Afghanistan. They voiced concern that the war in Iraq could divert attention from Afghanistan.

"The latest global events must not weaken the efforts of the world community to pursue the goal of economic reconstruction in Afghanistan," the Ministers said. Ria Novostiq uoted the Foreign Minister of Tajikistan, Talbak Nazarov, as saying after the meeting that "preoccupation of the world community with post-war reconstruction of Iraq has already tempted certain forces inside Afghanistan to try and destabilise the situation in the country."

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