Shifting Regional Ambits SCO Foreign Minister Meeting.

Byline: Farhat Asif

In a rundown towards the main SCO Summit scheduled to be held in September, the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers was hosted by the current Chairman of the organization Uzbeki stan. Foreign Ministers from eight permanent members, four observer states and nine dialogue partners along with representatives from other countries and international organiza tions were present for this important summit. The meeting put forward the roadmap and finalized several important thresholds for the upcoming meeting in September. The most significant development at the CFM meeting in Tashkent is the adoption of Joint Statement on Strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention, an affective component to enforce counter-proliferation of biological weapons and prevent their access to terror organization for wider public safety. The CFM further signed sixteen decisions while endorsing the cooperation in socio-economics, collective stance on global politics, financial structure and challenges to SCO.

This year SCO is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the signing of the SCO Charter and also the 15th anniversary of the Treaty on Long-term Good Neigh bourliness, Friendship and Cooperation among SCO member states. This treaty and charter are the core and at the heart of the SCO's regional meaningful cooper ation in diverse sector. SCO as an organization has expanded from across Asia covering nearly 3.2 billion people with 34 million sq km of land mass. The GDP of this region is contributing nearly 40 percent of the global GDP, with four nuclear powers and an important geostrategic landscape, SCO is an important multilateral institu tion having tremendous opportunities and challenges. Right before the Summit, Tashkent hosted a conference/consultations with regional stakeholders on Afghanistan especially as the winter is setting in and when the first anniversary of the fall of Kabul is approaching on 15 August. There was an echo about the finding an indigenous solutions to the regional problems especially Afghanistan with less interference from foreign forces. Earlier a similar moot was hosted by Kyrgyzstan especially the consultative level discussion on regional challenges and building opportunities together within the Central Asian Republics (CARs).

Here role of Uzbekistan is significant and while observing closely this seems a sense of responsibility leadership from Tashkent. Especially for hosting these important Summits and consultative...