Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 23
By Demir Azizov– Trend:
The jubilee summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which will be chaired by Uzbek President Islam Karimov, will kick off in Tashkent June 23.
According to the Uzbek foreign ministry, the representatives from 18 countries will participate.
“The heads of the SCO member-states, namely Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon will attend the summit," a representative of the Uzbek foreign ministry said.
According to the ministry, the SCO observer-states will be represented at the summit by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov will also participate in the summit as a guest of the presiding country, the ministry added.
According to the ministry, the heads of the partner international organizations, namely, UN Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, Chairman of the Executive Committee, CIS Executive Secretary Sergei Lebedev, CSTO Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha, ASEAN Secretary-General Le Luong Minh and Executive Director of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) Gong Jianwei also confirmed their participation in the SCO summit.
In general, around 1,000 representatives of the SCO member-states, international organizations, as well as foreign media will arrive in Tashkent to attend the summit.
The SCO was established in 2001. The SCO members are China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Afghanistan, Iran, Mongolia and Belarus are the SCO observer-countries, while Turkey, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka, Armenia, Cambodia and Nepal are dialogue partners.