Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

Shanghai Hezuo Zuzhi

Shankhayskaya Organizatsiya Sotrudnichestva

Established: By declaration of the heads of the member states, meeting in Shanghai, China, on June 15, 2001. The body’s structure was formalized in a charter signed on June 7, 2002, in Moscow, Russia, and came into full effect September 19, 2003.

Purpose: To strengthen mutual trust, friendship, and good relations between the member states; to maintain peace, security, and stability in the region and to promote a new democratic, fair, and rational political and economic international order; to counteract terrorism, separatism, and extremism in all their manifestations; to fight against illicit narcotics and arms trafficking and other types of criminal activity of a transnational character, as well as illegal migration; to encourage efficient regional cooperation in such spheres as politics, trade ...