Afghan situation essential for stability on SCO space - Bishkek
BISHKEK. April 29 (Interfax) - National security will be high on the agenda that the SCO Council of National Coordinators will determine shortly for the Bishkek summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
The SCO Council of National Coordinators will meet in Bishkek on May 1-4 to elaborate the summit agenda, SCO Secretary General Dmitry Mezentsev said after a meeting of secretaries of SCO security councils in Bishkek on Monday.
The autumnal summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization "will be a new stage in the SCO development," he said.
There will be a meeting of national drug control agency heads in Bishkek on April 30, he added.
In turn, Kyrgyz Defense Council Secretary Busurmankul Tabaldiev told reporters that secretaries of the SCO security councils "had discussed a number of issues related to regional security, stability and order on the SCO space."
"Security council secretaries agree that security in the region and the SCO space depends on international realities. New threats and challenges to be created by the international coalition pullout from Afghanistan are a source of concern," Tabaldiev said.
"Security and stability on the SCO space depend on the situation in Afghanistan to a considerable degree," he said. The secretaries of SCO security councils said at the Bishkek meeting that "it was necessary to carry on the active and purposeful fight against terrorism, separatism, extremism, drug trafficking, organized crime and cyber-crime," he added.
The Defense Council secretary noted that the secretaries of SCO security councils prepared a set of issues, which might be pondered at the SCO summit.