SCO summit will be 'new milestone' in grouping's history: China

China today said the forthcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit will be a "new milestone" in the grouping's history as it would formulate new measures for common security to strike on three "evil forces" of terrorism, extremism and separatism, besides drug trafficking and cybercrimes.

The summit will be held in the Chinese city of Qingdao on June 9-10 in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi would take part.

This is the first SCO summit to be held after India and Pakistan were admitted to the grouping in which China plays an influential role.

The SCO is comprised of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan.

Pakistan is expected to be represented by its President, Mamnoon Hussain as the country is poised for general elections.

Over the years, the SCO has developed strong anti-terrorism cooperation structure, Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS). It specialised in cooperation in counter terrorism operations with periodic exercises between the member countries.

"On security, the summit's focus would be on the three evil forces (terrorism, extremism and separatism), drug trafficking and cybercrime," Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a media briefing here today.

"During the summit, leaders of the SCO member states will analyse the global and regional security situation, explore specific measures to strengthen security cooperation and review several cooperation documents," Wang said.

The SCO summit will explore broaden and elevate security cooperation, he said. The leader will review documents on striking against the three forces and cyber crimes and drug trafficking, he said.

Such a cooperation will "help solidify the legal framework for security cooperation and will make shore up the resolve the parties to collectively address the uncertainties and destabilising factors and elevate the coordination among the concerned departments so that it would strengthen SCO strength and world peace, strengthen regional security and stability, he said.

Terming the summit to be a new milestone in SCO's history since it was founded in 2001, Wang said its has become the largest regional cooperation organisation in terms of geographical coverage and population.

Since China took over the rotating presidency of the SCO last June, more than 160 activities including a series of important institutional meetings and multilateral events have been held so far, Wang said.

The events held in the run up to the summit included, meetings of Foreign and Defence Ministers as well as top security officials of the grouping.

"Mutual political trust has been lifted to a new high; security coordination has made new progress; pragmatic cooperation has achieved new breakthroughs and people-to-people exchanges have yielded new fruits," Wang said.

He said China hoped that the Qingdao summit would reach new consensus, formulate new measures and design a new blueprint for enhanced development.

"Series of documents will be passed covering customs, agriculture, environment and tourism among others. They will be accompanied by detailed action plans so that political consensus will be translated into deliverables and fresh impetus to development," he said.

"Peoples have high expectations of the summit, the international community is watching the summit closely," Wang said, adding that the leaders will try to reach new consensus on maintaining regional peace and solidarity and integrated development of member states.