For the first time, an American official attended a meeting organized by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The SCO met in Moscow on Friday to discuss Afghanistan. Patrick Moon, the United States deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, was present and commented that the US views “this as a positive forum for additional cooperation on Afghanistan.”
“There are proposals…for the SCO countries to cooperate on counterterrorism, counter narcotics and counter organized crime. These are positive steps and we will look at where we might be able to contribute.”
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization includes China, Russia and four Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The SCO could serve as a regional counterweight to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but there is potential for cooperation with the security grouping on issues of mutual concern – the invitation to the US opened the window for collaboration.
Evan Feigenbaum, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former US state department official, was interviewed about the conference last week. Mr. Feigenbaum said the meeting offered “an opportunity for the United States to try to turn what are ostensibly common interests [in Afghanistan] into complementary polices.”
“We really don’t understand what the SCO is in part because SCO members themselves don’t know what the SCO is. Is it a security group? Is it a trade bloc? Is it a group of non-democratic countries that have created a kind of safe zone where the United States and Europeans don’t talk to them about human rights and democracy?”
The Council also published a backgrounder on the SCO.
The conference was held on the same day President Obama released his new “AfPak” strategy for US involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan and days before the United Nations conference in The Hague.
For more, check out the FPA’s blog on Afghanistan.
Photo from Mikhail Klimentyev.
