Shanghai Cooperation Organisation getting official status

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) uniting China, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan is expected to complete its institutionalizing already by 2004.

SCO statutory documents will be considered at Moscow's third summit of this organisation on May 28-29, which plans in part to endorse an act on councils of heads of state, prime ministers, ministers of external affairs and national coordinators as well as on a SCO secretariat and an executive committee of the regional anti-terrorist body.

Arrangements have been made to sign an agreement on the order of building up and executing a SCO budget to be worth $4 million.

The heads of state have been also reported to approve of the SCO's emblem and flag as well as the executive secretary candidacy of Zhang Deguang, the Chinese ambassador in Moscow, to hold the post for the next three years.

The Russian ambassador in China, Igor Rogachev, says that the SCO agenda in Moscow will be dominated by such issues as the international situation and key regional problems.

A political declaration is to crown the summit.

It was in Shanghai on June 15, 2001 that the presidents of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan decided to set up a SCO to gather later, on June 7, 2002, in St.Petersburg for their second summit to sign the SCO charter and the agreement on a regional anti-terrorist body.

Work is nearing completion over an agreement on mutual assistance in emergency situations; joint projects of transport ministries are being discussed; contacts between prosecutor-general offices and frontier-guard services have been established and a SCO art festival programme is under review.

On the world scene, the SCO has already joined the US Security Council's counter-terrorist committee and is busy negotiating cooperation with the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).