SOURCE: TREND
The 14th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) took place in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan from Sept.11 to Sept.12.
The summit brought together the heads of all key countries of the region after a long time and this meeting will likely be a turning point in the organization’s history. The new rules of accession to the SCO, adopted during this meeting, will allow to admit India and Pakistan to the organization in the next summit to be held in Russia in 2015.
Thus, the current meeting of the leaders of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan may be the last one in this format.
Currently, the population of the SCO member states nears one and a half billion people and as a result of expansion of the organization, this figure will almost double. The Chinese economy alone ranks second in the world for the GDP volume after the U.S. The total size of the armies of SCO members even exceeds the size of the NATO member states’ armies. So, it will be impossible to ignore such a large scale organization.
The message of the summit clearly reflected the organization’s intention to increase its role and influence in the international arena. The issues discussed during the summit went far beyond the borders of the participating countries. The summit participants spoke for the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, discussed the prospects for creating international transport system, fighting against the international extremism and drug trafficking, implementation of international energy and agricultural projects and other global issues.
Thus, a new power is emerging in the Eurasian region and other powers will have to reckon with it.
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