To Attend SCO Summit
Regional Energy Club Planned

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, Aug. 15--President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived on Wednesday in Kyrgyzstan to join the leaders of Russia and China for a summit of a regional group seen as a platform for countering US interests in strategic, energy-rich Central Asia. The US, which maintains an airbase in the host country, is keeping a close eye on Thursday’s gathering of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which also includes four ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia.

The SCO emerged 11 years ago to address religious extremism and border security issues in Central Asia. China and Russia have been pushing for strengthening the group since the US military set up airbases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to support the anti-terror campaign in nearby Afghanistan.

In recent years, with Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia signing on as observers, the group has emerged as a broader and more powerful bloc aimed at resisting US domination in world affairs.

Ahmadinejad is attending the annual summit for the second year in a row.
At last year’s summit in Shanghai, the Iranian president called on the SCO to become “a strong, influential economic, political and trading institution“ that could act to “prevent the threats of domineering powers and their aggressive interference in global affairs“. The organization, whose members are some of the world’s biggest energy producers and consumers, also has begun to embrace economic cooperation.

At Thursday’s summit, the leaders plan to discuss the creation of an SCO Energy Club, a Kremlin official said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.
Ahmadinejad stopped in Turkmenistan on his way to Bishkek to meet with Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. He said that the Caspian Sea should remain the sea of peace and friendship joining borders of Iran and Turkmenistan.
Berdymukhamedov pointed out that Iran was among first countries that recognized Turkmenistan’s independence and “supported our policy of neutrality“. President Ahmadinejad made the remark during the official meeting of Iranian and Turkmen delegations. Ahmadinejad arrived in Ashkhabad from Kabul, Afghanistan, on the second leg of his three-nation tour of regional states. Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan are the Caspian Sea littoral states.


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