SCO will work together to fight terrorism

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The Shanghai Cooperation Organization will work hard to maintain security in a region shadowed by terrorist forces, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Tuesday ahead of a SCO summit in Beijing.

Sources close to SCO operations said the upcoming summit, scheduled for June 6 to 7, willmodify a security document helping its member countries in handling domestic emergencies if the country asks for help.

In case of instability in the Central Asian region or any SCO member country, the SCO secretary-general is authorized to convene a conference of member countries.

"West Asia and North Africa are still in turmoil," said Deputy Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping, adding that external factors have given rise to terrorist, extremist and separatist forces.

Ji Zhiye, vice-president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said that the SCO has seen threats to its member nations through turmoil in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in recent years.

The new regulations will play a big role in fighting cross-border terrorism and crimes, Ji said.

Another source close to the SCO told China Daily on the sidelines of the forum that high-level officials from the US State Department have sent an application in "an informal way" for the status of SCO dialogue partner.

The informal application is a feeler to see how the SCO will respond, said the source.

Founded in 2001 in Shanghai, the SCO is comprised of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

As Central Asia is a traditional zone of US influence, Washington has paid extra attention to the region, said the source.

However, although "the SCO will have communication with the US, there is low possibility for it to establish an institutionalized relationship," the source said.

A senior former official of the SCO Secretariat, however, told China Daily that he had never heard of the US application.

SCO expansion is among the hot topics at the Beijing summit. State leaders attending the meeting will discuss Afghanistan's application for observer status and the application from Turkey to become a dialogue partner.

Asked about efforts by Western countries, including the US, to establish closer relationshipswith SCO member countries, Cheng said that "China firmly upholds anything that is good for the stability and development of the Central Asian region and the countries there".

About the broadcaster:

Emily Cheng is an editor at China Daily. She was born in Sydney, Australia and graduated from the University of Sydney with a degree in Media, English Literature and Politics. She has worked in the media industry since starting university and this is the third time she has settled abroad - she interned with a magazine in Hong Kong 2007 and studied at the University of Leeds in 2009.