BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 1. Kyrgyz President
Sadyr Japarov outlined key priorities for further cooperation
within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at the SCO Heads
of State Council meeting in Bishkek.


According to the press service of the Kyrgyz President, the
meeting, chaired by Sadyr Japarov, focused on current international
and regional issues, the further development of the organization,
security, economic cooperation and cultural and humanitarian
ties.


"President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sadyr Japarov today, September
1, in Bishkek, as chairman, opened the meeting of the Council of
Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization," the
statement said.


Sadyr Japarov stressed the importance of strengthening the SCO
as a platform for equal partnership and emphasized that the
organization should remain free from bloc thinking and
confrontation.


“Our Organization should continue to remain free from bloc
thinking and confrontation, and serve as a platform for
strengthening trust and ensuring peace and stability,” he said.


The Kyrgyz president also highlighted the need to develop an
effective and indivisible security system and called for the early
launch of the SCO Universal Center for Countering Challenges and
Threats to the Security of Member States.


He noted that all necessary conditions had been created in
Bishkek to launch the SCO Center for Combating International
Organized Crime.


Sadyr Japarov also called for a new quality of economic
cooperation within the SCO, emphasizing the importance of practical
progress toward establishing an SCO Development Bank.







He invited SCO member states and business communities to use the
opportunities offered by the Tamchy Special Financial and
Investment Territory, launched in July in Kyrgyzstan’s Issyk-Kul
region, for implementing joint projects.


The Kyrgyz president further highlighted the importance of
strengthening transport and logistics connectivity, pointing to the
China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project as a key practical
step.


He also emphasized the importance of developing cultural and
humanitarian cooperation and creating a common technological space
within the SCO.


"It is important to ensure equal access of states to modern
technologies so that digital inequality does not become a new
dividing line," Sadyr Japarov said.


The summit was attended by the heads of state and government of
SCO member countries, as well as SCO Secretary-General Nurlan
Yermekbayev and Director of the Executive Committee of the SCO
Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure Ularbek Sharsheev.


At the conclusion of the meeting, Sadyr Japarov handed over the
SCO chairmanship to Pakistan.