Preparations for SCO Bishkek Summit

On 25 June 2007 a board meeting at the Foreign Ministry of the Kyrgyz Republic discussed the issues concerning preparations for the SCO summit in Bishkek.

The SCO National Coordinator from Kyrgyzstan Tolendy Makeyev told that preparations for the most important external political event of 2007 with regard to its organisation and its programme had entered a final stage. The NC noted that the Working Group of the MFA had been working closely with their SCO partners to draw up an agenda and a list of concrete multilateral documents due to be signed during the SCO summit in Bishkek.

The Ministry board also announced that official invitations on behalf on the President of the Kyrgyz Republic had been forwarded to the heads of the SCO member states and the observer states (Mongolia, Iran, Pakistan, India). Besides that, the President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai and the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon were invited to attend the SCO summit as guests of honour.

At this point the participation of Iran, Mongolia and Turkmenistan at the presidential level, as well as of India and Pakistan at the level of foreign ministers has been confirmed. Replies from Afghanistan and the UN Secretary-General are expected to come in shortly.

The Treaty on long-term good-neighbourliness, friendship and cooperation among the SCO member states designed to strengthen the legal base for the existing constructive partnership relations among the member states will become the key document of the Bishkek summit. The Bishkek Declaration of the Heads of the SCO member states will become the final document of the summit.

The Ministry Board took into consideration the report of the NC Makeyev and decided to step up the activity of the Working Group on Kyrgyzstan’s presidency of the SCO in 2006-07 in order to ensure high-quality preparations for the Bishkek summit of the SCO (16 August 2007), SCO MFA Council meeting (09 August 2007) and SCO CNC Council meeting (5-7 July 2007).

Source: SCO website