Fighting terrorism
In the past 20 years since it was established, what contribution has SCO made in maintaining regional peace, security and stability, and promoting regional economic cooperation and development?
Norov: Since its establishment, the main purpose of the SCO has been to maintain and strengthen regional peace and stability. Three months before the September 11 incident in 2001, the SCO signed the Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism, and for the first time clearly defined terrorism, separatism and extremism.
The adoption of the document shows that the founding countries of the SCO had a clear recognition of the new challenges and threats facing international security at the time, and have since embarked on the path of uncompromising struggle against them.
Up to now, the SCO has formed a set of documents regulating anti- terrorism and anti- extremism. A major step taken recently in this area is the signing of the SCO Convention on Combating Extremism by the heads of member states in 2017. This convention is universal and open, and any country concerned can join.
Another important cooperation direction of the SCO is to combat drug trafficking. Of the opioids intercepted in the entire Eurasian continent each year, 40 percent are seized by our cooperative anti- drug agencies from traffickers.
Since 2019, in the International Anti- Drug Operation Spider Web, practical measures have been formulated to jointly address international and regional drug problems, aiming to stop the supply of plant and synthetic drugs, including cracking down on the spread of the drugs via the dark web.
The SCO pays special attention to the new challenges and threats created by the complex military- political and criminal situation in Afghanistan. Our starting point is that the conflict in Afghanistan can only be solved through political dialogue, and an inclusive peace process should follow the principle of “Afghan- led” and “Afghan- owned.”
We are ready to continue the joint work of the “SCO- Afghanistan” liaison group. The next high- level meeting of the liaison group will be held in Dushanbe in July this year. The purpose is to discuss specific measures to implement the joint “roadmap” for further action.
In addition, the SCO is one of the first regional organizations to put the issue of information security on the agenda.