Press Release – ISSI Participates in the Symposium on Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the SCO Charter and 15th Anniversary of the Treaty on Long-Term Cooperation on Good Neighborliness, Friendship, and Cooperation among Member States

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Press Release
ISSI Participates in the Symposium on Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the SCO Charter and 15th Anniversary of the Treaty on Long-Term Cooperation on Good Neighborliness, Friendship, and Cooperation among Member States
June 29, 2022

On 29 June 2022, the SCO Secretariat organized a symposium to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the SCO Charter and the 15th Anniversary of the Treaty on Long-Term Cooperation on Good Neighborliness, Friendship, and Cooperation. The symposium comprised of two sessions mainly. In the first session,   Secretary-General SCO, Zhang Ming, Director of the Executive Committee of Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), and foreign Ministers of each member state made their statements. In the second session, the heads of SCO National Research Centers including Iran’s Institute for Political and International Studies spoke on the theme of the event.

Director General ISSI, Amb. Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry made a speech at the symposium. He congratulated the SCO community on this festive occasion and commended the Secretariat and China Institute of International Studies (CIIS) for organizing this event.

He raised many pertinent points including the twenty-year achievements of SCO, salient features of the Treaty resulting in productive outcomes in terms of regional integration, and Pakistan’s contributions to the Organization.

He appreciated the role of RATS in preventing any activity undermining the state sovereignty and territorial integrity of the member states; resisting interference in the internal affairs of the member states; and taking joint measures to neutralize situations that endanger peace, security, and stability in the region.

He especially lauded the role of the SCO Forum, in which ISSI has been participating on regular basis. He praised the Forum for enhancing people-to-people cooperation among the member states and serving as a handy instrument of Track 1.5 and Track 2 Diplomacy. He was glad to note that SCO is building an inter-civilizational link among its members and suggested establishing an inter-civilizational dialogue at the platform of SCO for generating universal and humanistic interpretations of civilizational legacies and cultural identities. 

Earlier while speaking at the symposium, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari extended his warm felicitation to the SCO community and highly appreciated the Shanghai Spirit. He reiterated Pakistan’s support for promoting regional peace and development at the platform of SCO. He also urged his counterparts in SCO to continue cooperation in the areas of increasing transport links, climate change, especially food crisis, and socio-economic challenges catalyzed by the Covid-19 pandemic. The event was concluded with the remarks by the Ambassador of Uzbekistan to PRC, Arziev F.N.