RATS Executive Committee begins work in Tashkent

The summit continued to define the SCO as a regional coordination forum and emphasized political consultation among its members. The organization’s influence rested on consensus among governments...

The Charter entered into force after the member states completed the required procedures. The SCO now had a binding constitutive instrument governing its institutions and stated purposes, creating a...

At the Beijing meeting, heads of government adopted a long-term programme for multilateral economic cooperation. It named transport, trade and investment as fields for coordination and imagined a...

The trade and economic programme prioritized practical steps toward an enabling environment for trade and investment. It reveals the SCO’s aspiration to complement security cooperation with...

The Secretariat began work as the organization’s permanent administrative body. This gave the SCO continuity between annual summits and expanded its capacity to coordinate decisions, though it...

At the Tashkent summit, leaders addressed counterterrorism alongside trade, investment, transport and other cooperation areas. They described the SCO as an equal partnership and not a bloc. This...

The declaration instructed the Secretariat to prepare documents toward a Business Council and Development Fund. This was a proposal to support trade and investment projects, not evidence that the...

The Tashkent Declaration called for environmental protection and rational use of water resources to enter the organization’s cooperation agenda. This acknowledged that Central Asian security also...

The declaration argued for a global counterterrorism system centered on the United Nations and for prevention as well as response. This framing resisted unilateral security hierarchies, but it did not...

The Tashkent Declaration expressed interest in a peaceful, united Afghanistan and supported international cooperation on security, reconstruction and drug trafficking. Afghanistan was treated as...