The Shanghai Cooperation Organization concluded its annual summit on June 11 by calling for “dialogue” between conflicting groups in Kyrgyzstan, formally agreeing on a procedure to admit new members, and urging the United Nations to play a leading role in Afghanistan.
The two-day meeting, held in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, drew the presidents of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, China, Mongolia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The agreements that member states produced – at least publicly – seemed underwhelming. “The organization is in the process of defining itself,” said one Western diplomat who spoke to EurasiaNet.org on condition of anonymity. “But this is pretty thin soup.”
On the ongoing interethnic clashes in Kyrgyzstan, the organization issued a statement urging that differences “should be settled through dialogue and consultations by political and diplomatic means.” Tajikistan President Imomali Rahmon said that the violence in Osh “once again proves the necessity to create effective SCO response mechanisms.” [For background see EurasiaNet’s archives].
While the SCO appears to be less interested in a defining military role than it once was, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which contains most of the same members as the SCO (with the notable exception of China) is developing a counter-terrorism force. Even though, the CSTO recently held military exercises in southern Russia, there are no plans to use that force in Kyrgyzstan, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev emphasized at the SCO summit.
“The criterion for putting into action CSTO forces is the transgression by a country, or a non-state entity of the borders of another CSTO state, in other words, a foreign invasion, an attempt to seize power from outside," he said. Intervention in Kyrgyzstan “is not considered yet because all problems in Kyrgyzstan are rooted inside the country [and] were brought about by the previous authorities, their unwillingness to solve social and economic problems.”
The SCO has gone through a variety of phases since its foundation in 2001. It started out as a mechanism to demarcate borders among members, briefly appeared ready to develop into a military alliance, and more recently has adopted a broader, but vaguer, portfolio of regional security. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive].
In spite of an ongoing lack of clarity about the organization’s purpose, several countries are interested in obtaining full membership in the group, in particular Iran, Pakistan and possibly India. Even so, the prospects for expansion are not clear. Russian officials have said that Iran will not be admitted as long as it is the subject of UN sanctions. Meanwhile, admitting India and Pakistan could embroil the group in the conflict between those two countries. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Kazakhstan’s in expansion appears tepid at best, suggested Rustam Burnashev, a security analyst based in Almaty. “If India and Pakistan are admitted, then the SCO has to deal with their problems,” he said.
The summit took place under tight security. Uzbekistan restricted border traffic to and from Kazakhstan, according to Kazakhstani authorities, and Tashkent police shut down the city’s numerous black-market currency changers.
Human rights activists in Uzbekistan were closely monitored to ensure that they would not use the summit to stage a public protest. Police, for example, called the home of Elena Urlaeva, a leading human rights activist in Tashkent, and told her family to leave town for the duration of the summit. Many of her fellow activists were reportedly prohibited from leaving their homes.
