Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 24
By Demir Azizov – Trend:
An expanded meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has kicked off in Tashkent under the chairmanship of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov, Trend’s correspondent reports.
Besides the heads of the six member states of the SCO – Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the meeting is also attended by the presidents of Afghanistan, Belarus, Mongolia, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, as well as representatives of international organizations, in particular, the UN, CIS, CSTO and ASEAN.
Opening the event, President Islam Karimov said that during a narrow format meeting the leaders of the SCO member states exchanged views on the full range of the issues included in the summit’s agenda.
The SCO 2016-2020 Action Plan and the Tashkent Declaration on the 15th Anniversary of the SCO will be reviewed during the meeting.
Among the main topics of the summit is the signing of a memorandum on the commitments of India and Pakistan in order to obtain the SCO member-state status.
The Tashkent meeting will also discuss such issues as Iran’s joining the SCO, integration processes in the Eurasian region, including through the Eurasian Economic Community (EEC) and the Chinese initiative "Silk Road Economic Belt", ASEAN countries’ joining the partnership, the situation in Afghanistan and the Middle East, and the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking.
More than 10 documents are planned to be signed during the summit.