July 6, 2007 (LPAC)--The Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with Mongolia, India, Iran and Pakistan as observer nations) met in Bishkek, Kyrgystan today, laying out a program for their Annual Summit to be held in Bishkek on August 16. Their final document emphasized active cooperation of the SCO with the CIS states, ASEAN and the Euro-Asian Economic Community, and the United Nations. Before the meeting, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin told the press that the ministers would prepare documents which will "build up a contractual and legal basis of the SCO, will impart a new dynamic to diversified cooperation within the framework of the organization."

The SCO was initiated in 1996 to counter terrorist operations in Eurasia, and has since grown to encompass economic, trade, military, cultural, and legal cooperation among its members. Terrorism is still a central issue, and, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, on Aug. 17, the day after the summit, "our leaders will attend the active phase of the SCO Peace Mission-2007 anti-terror exercise in the Chelyabinsk region. The results and decisions of the upcoming summit will make a considerable contribution to higher stability and security and the development of integration processes on the SCO space in the interests of our countries, people and the whole region."

The devolution of Afghanistan is another key issue for the SCO. Lavrov told the press that Russia would like the SCO, including the observer nations, "to work more actively with the SCO-Afghanistan contact group.... We need to use an approach which combines necessary active economic support and more critical measures to suppress drug trafficking, while it is also necessary to support national agreement within Afghanistan." Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will be invited guests, Kazakhstan Today reported.