| SCO security councils' 7th secretaries meeting held in Beijing
http://english.sina.com of 4/12/2012
The seventh secretaries meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) security council was held here on Thursday, and participants exchanged views on further security cooperation during the next decade of the SCO's development.
Representatives from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and China attended the meeting and all parties signed meeting memos based on the outcome of the meeting.
All sides at meeting commented positively on drug control departments, the efforts by member states to cut off channels for terrorism, separatism and extremism and a joint anti-terrorism drill code-named Tianshan-II (2011). They also applauded the cooperation among member states in fighting terrorism, separatism and extremism and commended the SCO Counter-Terrorism Convention of 2009.
All parties noted that the SCO is facing more difficult tasks in safeguarding regional peace and promoting common development as hot international and regional issues exist and new conflicts and challenges emerge. They agreed to improve the SCO's capacity to react to threats and challenges under the principle of not interfering with each other's internal affairs and respecting the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of member states.
All parties discussed how to improve political and diplomatic mechanisms for defeating threats to regional peace, security and stability and how to cooperate on fighting terrorism, separatism and extremism.
They all agreed that regional peace and stability largely lies in the resolution of Afghanistan's problems. The independence, integrity of sovereignty and territory of Afghanistan should be respected and its people's efforts for peaceful construction deserve support.
All parties emphasized the grave threat of drug smuggling in the region and agreed to enhance drug control cooperation and assistance as well as pragmatic cooperation in specific departments so as to better defeat the drug threat.
All parties noted disruptive activities launched by terrorist, separatist and extremist forces via the Internet and the activities' threats to the security and stability of member states, agreeing to further promote cooperation in safeguarding international information security.
They also listened to reports delivered by the executive commissioners of regional anti-terrorism organizations.
Chinese State Councilor Meng Jianzhu presided over the meeting as China is the rotating chair of the SCO.
He said the meeting has laid a solid foundation for this year's SCO summit as well as the organization's further efforts in safeguarding regional peace, security and stability.
Meng pointed out that the SCO has achieved fruitful results, gained greater international status over recent years and played an important role in safeguarding regional stability and development, building friendly, equal and mutual relations among member states.
The overall regional security situation of the SCO remains stable. However, it is affected by the uncertain international financial situation, the turbulence in west Asia and north Africa, the uncertainty of Afghanistan's security situation, the threat of terrorism, separatism and extremism, drug problems, cross-border organized crime and Internet crime, Meng said.
The SCO must enhance security cooperation with specific goals and build a more effective preventive and attack mechanism, he said.
SCO members agreed to improve the SCO's security cooperation and emergency response mechanism, enhance member states' capacity to react and take action quickly and strengthen cooperation between their law enforcement and security agencies to ensure multilateral cooperation projects.
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