Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, April 28 /Trend H.Hasanov/
President Hu Jintao sent invitation to the President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov to attend the 12th session of the Council of Heads of States of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), held in Beijing on June 6-7 as honored guest.
It is stated in the letter published on Saturday, which express confidence issues of mutual interest will be discussed in the frame of the visit.
The Chinese leader also expressed his "firm belief that the relationship between the SCO member states and neighboring countries, as well as regional cooperation will rise to a new stage in its development through joint efforts."
Jintao noted that new directions for the friendly cooperation between the member countries and regional partners to identify ways of effective responses to global challenges and threats will be worked out and plans for the development of the SCO for the next decade will be discussed during the upcoming meeting.
SCO, established on June 15, 2001, is the permanent intergovernmental international organization, which brings together Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan.
The basic goals of the Shanghai organization include strengthening mutual confidence and friendly relations between the participating countries; assistance to their effective collaboration in the political, commercial and economic, scientific and technical and cultural spheres, and also joint guarantee and maintenance of peace, security and stability in the region.
The supreme decision-making body is the Council of SCO Heads of States (CHS), which meets once a year.
Turkmenistan has been actively conducting regional activities, particularly in economy. The region has implemented a major gas pipeline project Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-China, commissioned in 2009.
In addition, Turkmeniistan involving Iran and Kazakhstan is implementing a large-scale railway project "North-South."