Address by the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov at the meeting of the

Council of heads of the SCO member-states

On June 15-16, 2009 the city of Ekaterinburg of the Russian Federation hosted the meeting of the Council of heads of the SCO member-states.

President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov participated at the meeting.

In his address at the delegation-level meeting President of the Republic of Uzbekistan has positively assessed the activity of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization for over the last period. In particular, he noted that “a considerable work has been carried out on further widening and enhancing the fruitful cooperation in political, economic and social-humanitarian spheres, substantial steps have been taken in implementing the most important policy tasks and objectives, which stand before our Organization.

President of Uzbekistan underscored that “with each year the role and significance of the SCO were seeing their rise in resolving the problems of regional and global security, counteracting the international terrorism, separatism and extremism, drug trafficking and other challenges and threats to security in the strategically important region of Central Asia”.

President has been quoted as saying “our today’s decision on granting the partner-status on SCO dialogue to the Republic of Belarus and the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri-Lanka has become the vivid demonstration of yet growing authority of the SCO on international arena, openness of the Organization, its readiness to establish cooperation with other states.”

Islam Karimov expressed confidence that documents to be signed upon the outcomes of the summit would become an important stage on the way of securing the tasks which stand before the SCO.

President Islam Karimov has dwelled on the most important priorities in the SCO activity, “the implementation of which will allow considerably increase the efficiency of its activity, consolidate security, provide for fuller use of the potential of the states of the region”.

In particular, he has underscored that “the war, which has already been going on for 30 years in Afghanistan, remains to be the main source of threat to security. And one doesn’t have to speak about security and stability in the entire Central Asian region without resolving this problem”.

In this context, President Islam Karimov has said it was impossible to resolve the Afghan problem with military way. He drew attention of the participants of the summit that without addressing such acute problems as reconstruction of economy, communications and social infrastructure of Afghanistan destroyed by war, without engaging the Afghans in this process, without providing them with jobs and strengthening the vertical of power one cannot positively change the situation in the country.

“It is extremely important to show full respect to the deep historical and ethnic-demographical roots of the multinational people of Afghanistan, to all confessions, traditional values of the religion of Islam, and secure on such basis and on the basis of dialogue the necessary consensus inside Afghanistan,” President Islam Karimov said.

President of Uzbekistan has underscored that the establishment of the “6+3” Contact Group under UN auspices, comprising the duly authorized representatives of states bordering Afghanistan, as well as the representatives of Russia, USA and NATO would serve for the soonest solution of the Afghan problem and would be an important consultative and diplomatic body on whose basis it would be possible to secure accord both inside and around Afghanistan.

Touching upon the aggravation of situation in the wake of the world financial economic crisis, and the growing problems related to overcoming it, Islam Karimov spoke for enhancing the coordination of joint efforts by SCO member-states in the conditions of global financial and economic crisis.

According to the President, “the state of affairs in the implementation of regional and national anti-crisis action programs, enormous expenditures, made for over the last period of continuation and aggravation of the world crisis, above all, in developed countries, are far cry from guaranteeing the stabilization of the world financial market, growth of demand and revival of the economic activity in the sphere of production.”

In President’s view, “economies of Central Asian countries, which so far have been playing the role of suppliers of raw and semi-finished products to the world market, seriously suffer from sharp fall in demand and prices.”

President Islam Karimov also drew the attention of participants to the fact that situation is yet more exacerbated by the policy of major countries on gross protectionism and denying access of goods from developing countries to their own markets, despite all public assurances on inadmissibility of such restrictions in trade.

This policy, according to the President, can lead to isolationism, process of de-globalization of economies and setback in those trends, which have developed for over the last decades and seriously harm, above all, the interests of developing countries.

In President’s view, “the most important unsolved issue on the way of overcoming the crisis is uncertainty of issues and the absence of mechanisms of control and regulation of financial, currency and stock markets, while without tackling this issue, the unpredictability of further behavior of crisis on the world market will persist.”

The President of Uzbekistan has underscored that “in current situation the issues of qualitative improvement and enhancement economic, above all, investment component within the SCO, adoption of the necessary legal documents, eradication of barriers on the way of trade and economic cooperation and direct ties between the entities of small business, implementation of projects in fuel and energy sector, transport and communications, as well as agriculture will acquire an enormous significance.”

“Further coordination of our efforts in financial and banking sphere on rendering concrete assistance to countries which acutely need loans and investments gain critically important meaning,” Islam Karimov has said.

In his remarks President Islam Karimov has also dwelled on the issues of enhancing the work with observer-states, as well as the dialogue partner countries with a view to enhancing the interaction and engaging their enormous potential in the sphere of joint activity within the SCO framework.

The President stressed that “article 13 of the Charter, while noting the open character of the SCO, underscores that the Organization is open for accepting new members which undertake to comply with objectives and principles of the Charter, as well as provisions of other international treaties and documents adopted by the SCO. In 2004 the SCO adopted the Regulations on the status of observer at the SCO.”

Islam Karimov underscored that “the adoption of this institute became an important link on the way of implementing the goals and tasks faced by the SCO, promoted the consolidation of the potential of the SCO, significantly expanded the capabilities of the Organization and considerably influenced its role and authority in the world community”.

It is expedient for us, following the logics of onward and consistent steps of the SCO along this path, to accelerate the preparation of necessary legal documents that define the procedure of accepting observer countries for a full-fledged membership of the SCO. We all realize the complexity of this issue. However in any case it must be consistently solved,” President Islam Karimov has underscored.

In conclusion, Islam Karimov expressed confidence that the outcomes of the open exchange of opinions on urgent problems and adopted decisions will come as the next step aimed at maintaining security and sustainable development of the SCO countries.