President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev is participating in today’s summit of the Council of the Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Astana, 9 June: Special correspondent of UzA Abu Bakir Orozov reports.

President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev is participating in today’s summit of the Council of the Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The summit began in the Independence Palace of the city of Astana on 9 June with the SCO Heads of State’s meeting in private session.

The meeting was held under the chairmanship of President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev.

President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping, President of the Kyrgyz Republic Almazbek Atambayev, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon participated in the meeting.

At the meeting, there was discussion about issues of further improving the SCO and its bodies, developing political, trade-economic and humanitarian cooperation among its member states, strengthening regional security and stability and jointly fighting against terrorism, religious extremism, drugs and weapons smuggling.

The Heads of State looked at issues on which agreement was reached at the previous summit of the SCO, specifically a large number of issues relating to the development of trade-economic, scientific-technical, social, cultural, humanitarian relations and also relations in the transportation sphere.

Attention was directed at a resolution on approving the 2016-2020 action plan for the implementation of the SCO’s 2025 development strategy, the SCO member states’ programme for stepping up cooperation in the tourism sphere and other documents.

The SCO turned into a prestigious organization in a relatively short space of time. After the founding of the SCO, many states expressed a desire to become its members. At the Tashkent summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an agreement was reached to give SCO Dialogue Partners Status to Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia and Nepal.

The summit is continuing its work.