The SCO countries aim to build a more just and multipolar world. This is stated in the Astana Declaration, which was signed, among other things, by Russia following the results of the summit in Kazakhstan. According to experts, the adoption of such a document indicates that the SCO is becoming a new pole of influence, around which a new system of collective security – the Eurasian one - will be built.
The 24th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was established in 2001 in Shanghai (the charter was signed in 2002 in St. Petersburg), ended on Thursday in the capital of Kazakhstan. Astana hosted the annual summit of the organization for the fourth time in its history. The last time this happened was in 2017.
For more than 20 years of its development, the organization has transformed from a regional format of meetings of heads of state into the largest international organization. Following the summit, the heads of state and government of the SCO member states approved the Astana Declaration of Unification.
President Vladimir Putin signed on behalf of Russia. He noted that the declaration "further highlights the commitment of all SCO participants to the formation of a just multipolar world order based on the central role of the United Nations, on international law, and on the desire of sovereign states for mutually beneficial partnership."
The document focuses on the organization's commitment to building a more just and multipolar world. Such an order, the declaration says, should be based on the principles of international law, cultural and civilizational diversity, equal and beneficial cooperation between countries, and the UN should have a central coordinating role.
During a meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State, Vladimir Putin called the SCO and BRICS the key pillars of the emerging new world order. "It is these associations that play the role of a powerful locomotive of global development processes and the establishment of genuine multipolarity," the Russian president said.
At the same time, the SCO leaders believe that reform is needed to increase the authority and effectiveness of the United Nations. "It is important to ensure the representation of developing countries through comprehensive UN reform," the declaration says.
The meeting in Astana received increased attention from international observers, because the summit is taking place at a time of aggravation of global problems. Among them are food and energy security, climate change and the fight against terrorism.
Another important outcome of the meeting was the official entry of Belarus into the SCO.
President of the Republic Alexander Lukashenko said that Minsk will do everything to make the SCO a global organization. "Belarus is very proud to have become a full member of the SCO. We will strengthen the Shanghai spirit of an organization based on the principles of mutual respect, equality and solidarity. As a European country, we will do everything to make the SCO a global organization," Lukashenko said in Astana.
In addition to Belarus, the SCO includes Russia, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of Russia, called Belarus' accession to the SCO a great acquisition for the organization. In turn, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted Russia's interest in the Union State participating as a united front in all international processes.
Later, at a press conference, Putin also noted that if the SCO "has become so powerful, big, then the principles that it declares also matter when they diverge around the world." "For example, we agreed in the declaration and in other documents that all SCO countries oppose the deployment of any weapons in outer space. This is still a signal to the rest of the world about how we feel about the militarization of outer space," he explained.
"There are other things that are certainly serious and important, as I have already said. Firstly, the trillion–dollar turnover of joint trade is important. Finally, the coordination of humanitarian issues, cooperation in various areas, including youth cooperation, in the field of culture, education, sports – all this is very important and has good prospects," the president added.
"Important decisions are being made in Astana today to build a multipolar world. Vladimir Putin raised the issue of a new architecture of cooperation and security in Eurasia, thereby marking the end of the Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models," said political scientist Vladimir Kornilov.
The interlocutor called the Astana Declaration "a significant document that will be studied in Western analytical centers." "According to the text of the declaration, the SCO base will be Central Asia, and it is from it that the rays of the world order built on the Eurasian basis will radiate. Thus, a new pole is being consolidated, which the West will sooner or later have to reckon with," Kornilov stressed.
He also noted the importance of Belarus joining the SCO "in the context of building a Eurasian security system," which Vladimir Putin spoke about in detail at a recent board of the Foreign Ministry, and pointed to the participation in the summit of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, whose country is a member of NATO: "We can say that we are promoting our ideas to the West – and this is not it can be ignored."
The expert welcomed the paragraph of the declaration on the need to reform the UN. "There is a lot of talk in the West and in the Eurasian space that it is necessary to expand the list of permanent members of the UN Security Council," the source recalled, adding that there are discrepancies within the UN itself on this issue, and the proposed reform is "a matter of very distant prospects."
"The five permanent member states of the UN Security Council are the legacy of the Second World War. How far it can be revised is the subject of academic and practical discussions",
– says Timofey Bordachev, program director of the Valdai discussion club. The political scientist does not exclude that the composition of the Security Council may be expanded at the expense of India, which ranks first in the world in terms of population. "New Delhi adheres to a relatively neutral position in relations between the West, Russia and China. And India has external sovereignty," the political scientist explained.
As for the growing interest of the world community in the SCO summit, it is explained by the adequate relations between the participants of the association. "Cooperation in BRICS and the SCO is an example of building a new world order. There is no pressure on anyone here. And this allows the SCO member states to do something together. And Belarus' accession to the organization naturally closes the perimeter of Eurasian security," Bordachev concluded.
Alyona Zadorozhnaya
