Russia to continue to develop relations with SCO partners - Putin
NOVO-OGARYOVO. Jan 14 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has noted the recently increased influence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and reaffirmed Moscow's efforts to continue paying the utmost attention to interactions within the SCO.
"We attach much importance to the furthering of relations with our SCO partners," he said at a meeting with Dmitry Mezentsev, who until January 2016 had served as SCO Secretary General.
"The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was born at the time to address fairly narrow problems, not of a global nature: border issues between the founding states, and now it has, of course, acquired quite a different weight and an absolutely different ring to it," said the Russian president.
The issues the SCO tackles "at its forefront include not only regional security, which we do not forget either, but also economic cooperation, precisely in the area which has developed at quite a fast pace in recent years," Putin said.
"This is why we will, as was agreed with partners, strive to achieve all the goals we have agreed upon with the Organization's member states," Putin said.
The president also thanked Mezentsev for his work. "We are very hopeful that the Organization's executive bodies will work as efficiently as they did under your leadership. We will be using your experience both in this and other areas," Putin said.
Mezentsev said that during Russia's presidency in the SCO in 2015 the organization managed to "provide a new level of interaction between the parties, boosting interaction among the founding members, the observer nations and partners in dialogue," Mezentsev said.
The SCO summit in Ufa last summer "was of historical significance," because the SCO approved a development strategy until 2025 and expansion decisions.
"We launched the accession of India and Pakistan to the Organization, raised the status of Belarus, the arrival of new states into the Shanghai family: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, and Nepal," Mezentsev said.
"This is a bid to position the Organization in the region in a new capacity and a bid to take part in international matters," he said.
The former SCO secretary general also said that the Organization has stepped up trade and economic cooperation, with partners and observers now also getting involved.
"The SCO's regional component [cooperation at the regional level] is also becoming real," Mezetsev said.
He also said that he sees major prospects for SCO cooperation with the United Nations, the CIS, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and other organizations.
