| Rakhmonov and Karimov argued about methods of combating terrorism The summits of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are doomed to success. This has always been the case throughout the eight-year history of this organization. The explanation for this must be sought in the origin of the SCO and its name. The SCO was born in 1996 on Chinese soil - that is why it is called Shanghai. The Chinese are very thorough and serious people and cannot allow the summits of an organization bearing their generic characteristics to end in failure.
The Tashkent summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization ended yesterday with the signing of ten agreements in various areas of activity - the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking, economic cooperation... An office of the SCO RATS, a regional anti-terrorist structure, was opened in Tashkent. The regulations on observer status at the SCO were approved and this status was immediately granted to the first country - Mongolia. At the same time, the host of the summit, Uzbek President Islam Karimov, noted that “there is an opinion” not to rush into further expansion of the SCO until it gains the necessary authority in the world and the right to join it becomes a high honor. Thus, Uzbekistan, which was the last to join the organization, five years ago, will remain in this capacity for a long time.
The highlight of the summit was the participation in it of the “transitional” Afghan leader Hamid Karzai. He showed off in Tashkent without the light astrakhan hat on his head, which had become familiar to his appearance, which had already been nicknamed “Karzaevka”. Afghanistan turned out to be, as expected, the focus of attention of the SCO people. Everyone was talking about Afghan problems. And we decided to help this country together. Vladimir Putin even proposed creating an SCO-Afghanistan contact group. He also recalled that the drama of Afghanistan was at one time one of the motivations for the creation of the SCO.
Of course, most of the talk in Tashkent was about countering international terrorism. The polemic between the presidents of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan looked very expressive in this context. If Emomali Rakhmonov called to fight not only terrorism, but also the problems that give rise to it - poverty and unemployment, then Islam Karimov spoke about the need to fight terrorists - the immediate “edge” of trouble, and terrorist centers that provide financial support and zombify young people. Yes, Karimov noted, someone talks about poverty and unemployment - yes, this exists, but, they say, this is not the main thing...
Thus, the Uzbek leader repeated his assessment of the terrorist attacks in Tashkent and Bukhara at the end of March this year, according to which the internal situation in Uzbekistan is not the underlying cause of these bloody events.
Another remarkable feature of the Tashkent meeting was that not one of the SCO leaders ever uttered the word “democracy” in their speeches. In other words, the desire for a democratic structure of society, according to the SCO members, is not a panacea for terrorism. However, no one spoke about this directly, but it was somehow read in the pompous atmosphere of the summit. True, Islam Karimov said that the SCO countries have the right to demand a “respectful approach to the religious and ethnocultural” values of the countries of the region...
And the President of Uzbekistan argued that “successful prospects for cooperation within the SCO are primarily ensured by the participation in the organization of such major powers as Russia and China.” This thesis seemed so important to Mr. Karimov that he repeated it, in different versions, three times. It is no coincidence that these words were the first to be noticed by Western journalists working at the summit. “Is this another shift in Tashkent’s politics?” - they rushed to interview their Asian colleagues. They only shrugged their shoulders in response. What is true is that Tashkent is disappointed in its hopes for cooperation with the West, and primarily with the United States. The golden shower of American investments expected by Uzbekistan in exchange for Washington's assistance in the Afghan military operation never materialized. Only about $70 million received by Tashkent as payment for fuel and utilities at the air base in Khanabad does not count. By the way, according to the Vremya Novostei newspaper, the Americans are dissatisfied with how Tashkent uses this money, although, it would seem, what do they care about it...
But something else is obvious. Uzbekistan and its neighboring countries hardly hide their disappointment with the results of the counter-terrorist operation of the Western coalition in Afghanistan. For Tashkent, the situation in Afghanistan has always been a measure of stability and security in the region. The question of a journalist from Kazakhstan addressed to Hamid Karzai is noteworthy: how does he assess the results of this operation in connection with the fact that drug production in Afghanistan has increased significantly since it began? Mr. Karzai, however, did not succumb to provocation and spoke about the achievements of his administration, achieved thanks to the Western coalition.
It is therefore not surprising that when Chinese President Hu Jintao announced yesterday that China was ready to provide a $900 million loan to support export-import operations in the region, this was perceived as one of the main sensations of the summit. Arkady DUBNOV, Tashkent |
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