SCO: A special spirit of trust

Today's high status of Kazakhstan in the world community after thirty years of independence of our state was largely formed as a result of the active activity of the First President Nursultan Nazarbayev. We can say that the Kazakh style of conducting an international dialogue is a kind of reflection of the personal qualities of Elbasy, a supporter of a constructive approach and sober deliberate decisions.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was established in 2001 on the basis of the" Shanghai Five", founded after the signing by the heads of Kazakhstan, China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan of the Agreement on Strengthening Confidence-building Measures in the Military Field in the Border Area and the Agreement on Mutual Reduction of Armed Forces in the Border Area. According to the SCO Charter, the organization's priority goals are to strengthen friendship, mutual trust and good-neighborliness; encouraging effective cooperation in political, trade and economic, cultural, educational, scientific and technical, energy, transport, environmental and other spheres. The Republic of Kazakhstan was at the origins of the creation of the SCO, and participation in its construction has become one of the main directions in the country's foreign policy activities.
At the same time, the SCO has never been considered by its organizers as a kind of military bloc, like, for example, NATO. The main tasks of the Organization are declared to be the strengthening of stability and security in a wide area that unites the participating states, the fight against terrorism, separatism, extremism, drug trafficking, the development of economic cooperation, energy partnership, scientific and cultural interaction.
The prerequisites for the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization were laid back in 1996, when the "Shanghai Five"was formed. One of the Shanghai Five summits was held in Almaty in 1998. But the historic decision to create the SCO was made during the summit in Shanghai in June 2001. Then five participating countries accepted Uzbekistan into the organization, which led to the renaming of the organization into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or the "Shanghai Six".
It should be noted that among the first documents adopted by the SCO was the Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism.
The registration of the SCO as an organization was completed in 2002. At the meeting of the heads of state in St. Petersburg, the Declaration of the Heads of the SCO member states and the SCO Charter were signed, an agreement was signed on the creation of a Regional anti-terrorist structure of the SCO.
Following the results of the Moscow summit in 2003, the organizational period ended, and from January 1, 2004, the Organization began to function as a full-fledged international structure with its own working mechanisms, personnel and budget. Already at the Tashkent summit in 2004, the membership of the Organization was expanded by accepting a new member – Mongolia as an observer.
At the Bishkek summit in 2007, in addition to the President of Mongolia, the President of Iran participated in the forum as an observer. In addition, two more SCO observer states were represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan and the Minister of Oil and Natural Gas of India. And in 2009, at a meeting in Yekaterinburg, the heads of the SCO member states decided to grant the status of the SCO dialogue partner to Sri Lanka and Belarus.