SCO summit: Push for unipolar world 'turning ugly', says Putin

Current attempts to push for a unipolar world "have taken an absolutely ugly form lately, which the overwhelming majority of nations of the planet find unacceptable", Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, media reports said.

The remark came as Putin met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, RT reported.

During the meeting, Putin thanked Xi for China's 'balanced stance' on the crisis in Ukraine. China had criticised Russia for having attacked the country, but blamed the US for triggering the escalation by its push to expand NATO.

Putin also reiterated Russia's support of the 'one China' policy and Beijing's claim of sovereignty over the island of Taiwan. The Chinese government has accused the US of undermining its territorial integrity by increasingly treating Taipei as a separate nation rather than a self-governing part of China.

Putin praised the SCO as "a forum for constructive and creative cooperation." He remarked that the members of the group have different cultural traditions, economic models and foreign policy priorities. Their willingness to work together as equal partners respecting each other has helped bolster the SCO's prominence in a relatively short period of time, the Russian leader remarked, RT reported.

"It is now the biggest regional organization in the world, uniting a vast geographic space and about half of our planet's population," Putin stressed.

The SCO is an economic integration and trust-building organization that unites a number of Eurasian nations, including Russia and China. The list of its other permanent members includes India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. During the ongoing summit of the leaders of member states, Iran signed a commitment to upgrade its status from an observer to a full member.

--IANS

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