Tatiana Sinitsya, editor-in-chief of the InfoSHOS web portal, interviews Kirill Barsky, the Russian President’s special envoy to the SCO, Russia’s national coordinator at the organization and ambassador-at-large.

Q.: A few months ago, Kyrgyzstan hosted a meeting of SCO heads of state. Ahead of it, there had been a lot of agitation and different myths. What is your assessment of the summit in Bishkek?

A.: The summit was very successful. It was a worthy climax of Kyrgyzstan’s presidency in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which deserves the highest scoring point. Our colleagues strained every sinew, as they say, to make sure the year of their presidency was eventful. During this period, Kyrgyzstan arranged quite a number of SCO events. Apart from the meeting of the Council of SCO Heads of State on September 13, 2013, our Kyrgyz colleagues organized a meeting of the Council of Heads of Government in December 2012, a meeting of Security Council secretaries and heads of anti-drug agencies in April 2013, a meeting of defense ministers in June, and a meeting of foreign ministers on Lake Issyk-Kul in July. Besides, Bishkek hosted meetings on economic and humanitarian topics and there were quite a number of Kyrgyzstan’s own initiatives. So the year has been prolific, and the summit in September was quite eventful and successful.

The summit adopted the Bishkek Declaration. I advise all your readers who are interested in international relations to check it out, as it represents the SCO member states’ common views on the most acute problems in global politics and on the outlook for the organization’s development.

The member states have endorsed the Action Plan for 2013-2017 to implement the provisions of the Treaty on Long-Term Good Neighborly Relations, Friendship and Cooperation. It is a detailed and substantial document that is oriented towards specific steps to improve mutually beneficial cooperation and friendly ties between the SCO member states in very different areas. We should not forget that one of the organization’s main goals, in compliance with Article 1 of its Charter, is strengthening mutual trust, friendship and good neighborly relations between its members. Characteristically, this goal has been put to the fore on the list of the SCO’s goals and tasks.

On the day of the summit, relevant ministers signed the Agreement on Scientific and Technical Cooperation between governments of the SCO member states. Its signing has created a new prospective area for multilateral interaction of our countries. It offers a huge scope of activities, and the parties are already actively discussing a number of ideas.

I would like to add that ahead of the summit, Bishkek hosted meetings of the boards of the SCO Business Council, the SCO Interbank Association, and the SCO Youth Council. The business forum, held in one of the best hotels of the Kyrgyz capital, attracted about 250 representatives from the business community of the SCO member states, including over 50 Russian businessmen.

Q.: The summit coincided with the acutest stage of the Syrian war, and the global atmosphere was electric…

A.: Yes, the summit took place at the time of a drastic escalation of the situation in Syria and around it. The situation actually reached the boiling point and was naturally the center of attention of the SCO member states. Ahead of the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin had come up with the initiative of organizing international control over Syrian chemical weapons, which was supported by our partners in the organization. Syria was among central topics at the leaders’ meeting. Their common stand was recorded in the summit’s final declaration. A few days later, the world learned that the Russian-US agreement on Syrian chemical weapons was embodied as a UN Security Council resolution. Its adoption helped to bring the situation around Syria to a constructive level. There is now a chance that the problem will be settled peacefully and legitimately.

Without exaggerating the role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the development of this episode, I would suggest that it did make a contribution to the change in the mood of the Russian-US dialog on Syria and in the international atmosphere. Together with BRICS and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the SCO members firmly voiced their stand during those alarming days and therefore helped the Russian initiative to win support from many other countries.

The stand on Syria is a logical continuation of approaches the SCO sticks to in conflict settlement in general. They are fully reflected in the Bishkek Declaration. It emphasizes that settlement of international and regional conflicts should be achieved by purely peaceful political and diplomatic means based on the principles of equality, respect to countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-intervention in their domestic affairs and refusal to use force or threaten it. This is a principled position and life has repeatedly proven that it is the right one.

Q.: You have once said that the “SCO is one of the most dynamically developing regional organizations both in Eurasia and in the world.” But its opponents think differently: they say the SCO lacks energy, progresses slowly and is stalled by serious problems.

A.: The problems the SCO encounters are not the same that are ascribed to it. It is, for example, said that the organization has failed to become really “sharp-toothed” and is unable to perform its functions of ensuring security in the region, unable to perform the functions of a military alliance and cannot say “no” when – some analysts and journalists believe – the core interests of its member states are encroached upon.

But the SCO has never had such goals. It has never positioned itself as an organization that “will be friends against someone”, aimed against third countries, that will try to respond to existing challenges in a confrontational or even military way. This is the core issue that needs to be understood in order not to look for the SCO’s problems in the wrong place.

Of course, the SCO has its own problems and difficulties. To begin with, it is still a very young organization, it is just 12 years old, but it is growing and developing fairly fast for its age. Let me say that many regional unions needed decades to define their goals and tasks, to prepare the necessary legal framework and institutions of cooperation, to shape full-fledged mechanisms for interaction in different areas. Say, ASEAN has been around for over 40 years, but its members formulated the goal of building an ASEAN community only a few years ago. It is seen as a triune community: a security community, an economic community and a social and cultural one. But in the beginning, in the 1960s-1970s, ASEAN set itself different goals and cooperation developed only in separate areas.

The SCO member states set themselves the goals of developing political, economic and humanitarian cooperation when the organization was only being shaped and immediately decided that the SCO would develop as a full-format regional organization. Naturally, it is impossible to reach all the set goals over a short period of time. But the fact that the SCO is purposefully moving towards them is obvious to everyone who is capable of impartial assessments.

The problems the SCO encounters stem to a large degree from the alarming regional situation, the difficulty and acuteness of threats and challenges to security. It is necessary to find adequate and efficient answers to these threats and challenges. Dealing with these tasks, the SCO is growing stronger, maturing and improving its legal capability. We are not used to boasting of our successes, but I can say that the SCO has built a solid legal framework for cooperation in different areas in recent years and created practical mechanisms for this cooperation that function quite properly. For example, the key role in the security sphere belongs to the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) with headquarters in Tashkent, the RATS Council and meetings of heads of different law-enforcement agencies. Other executive “verticals” have been built in the economic, cultural and humanitarian spheres. Problems are inevitable, but they exist to be dealt with.

Q.: Can we say that the SCO’s dynamics is ensured by the energy of the recognized unity of the Shanghai Six, who clearly understand their goals and prospects? Apparently, we cannot disregard the boisterous energy of the young sovereign Central Asian states…

А.: To some degree, you are right. Indeed, the SCO comprises the states that are at different stages of their development, but were nevertheless motivated by the common goal of establishing and strengthening their own nationhood, developing their economy, etc. Naturally, they were looking for additional footholds in this complicated world in order to act upon their own national interests. And it is very positive that they found such a foothold in the SCO, which declared a program of varied multilateral regional cooperation in the interests of all of its members.

Q.: The SCO member states have common interests in different areas. But the organization’s textbook goal is to resist the “three forces of evil,” as our Chinese partners put it, i.e. terrorism, separatism and extremism. Could you tell us how these efforts are united in the most important areas?

A.: At the time the SCO was set up, all countries that became its founders were facing similar problems: as the bipolar international system went down, terrorism and its accompanying forces – separatism and extremism – were raising their heads. As is well known, it is easier to deflect threats together. This created a natural need for uniting efforts, all the more so, as a majority of these countries were connected to each other with strategic relationships.

This is why ensuring regional security and counteracting terrorism, extremism and separatism were seen among priority goals for the Shanghai organization from the very beginning. These goals are still relevant for it.

Q.: This “vile trio” was later joined by “untraditional challenges.” What does this term stand for?

A.: Unfortunately, as the situation in the region developed, new problems were added to the existing ones: illegal drug trafficking, transnational organized crime, use of information and communication technologies for destructive purposes, problems related to terrorism financing, money laundering, weapon smuggling, human trafficking, illegal immigration, etc. These are the issues we generally describe as “untraditional challenges.”

There is no doubt that it is important to counteract these threats. The problem of drug trafficking alone, which has flooded all countries of the region, is huge. Besides, it is important to understand that many of these phenomena are interrelated and feed each other. Therefore, the SCO member states have been paying special attention to these issues in recent years.

Q.: Did the Bishkek summit discuss the possibility of setting up a universal SCO center on the basis of the RATS, as was proposed by Russia?

A.: The Russian party came up with the initiative of setting up a center for counteraction to threats and security challenges of the SCO member states based on expert assessments that are completely shared by other countries’ analysts. The impending threats to the region’s countries are so closely interwoven that it is difficult to deal with each one separately. For example, it is very difficult and perhaps even impossible to eliminate the terrorist threat without dealing with drug trafficking, which to a large extent finances and arms terrorists. This should be done comprehensively.

The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure is an important permanent SCO body, which hires representatives of specialized agencies, and its results are quite good. However, the RATS addresses only tasks it has been given, namely, fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism. Consequently, it is necessary to expand its functions.

Speaking of the Center for counteraction to threats and security challenges of the SCO member states, it is necessary to say that it is now objectively needed. By the way, many SCO heads of state spoke in favor of this option for boosting the SCO’s operational capabilities at the Bishkek summit.

Of course, it is not easy to do. But the task is made easier by the fact that the Center can be and should be set up on the basis of the functioning institution, the RATS. The Russian party presented its view of the center’s concept. Now it is time to jointly develop it in a six-party format.

Q.: My next question is controversial for the world and sensitive for the SCO – Afghanistan. I remember once standing on the Uzbek bank of the Amu-Darya and seeing Afghans on the other bank, at a hailing distance… Soon the International Security Assistance Force will be gone. Apparently, nothing good will come out of it. What is the SCO doing to prepare itself for this period?

Q.: Of course, the SCO cannot stay away from Afghanistan’s problems. Unfortunately, we have to admit that threats and challenges to the security, safety and stability of the SCO member states come first of all from the Afghan territory, which is not fully controlled by the republic’s government.

However, the SCO cannot take up functions that are foreign to it. Say, its competence cannot include ensuring security in a country that is not its member. So “replacing” NATO after the coalition forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan is not on the agenda.

At the same time, the SCO is quite capable of assisting Afghanistan’s government with strengthening its law enforcement system, restoring its economy and social sphere and participating in international efforts to promote national reconciliation. Actually, this is what its members are already doing, first of all, on a bilateral basis. Assistance from neighboring countries is also an important factor that strengthens the position of the incumbent government, its international stand and Afghanistan’s “return” to the regional family. By the way, this was the goal of the decision that was adopted by the six leaders at the SCO summit in Beijing in 2012 and gave Afghanistan the status of an SCO observer.

The best way the Shanghai Cooperation Organization can contribute to strengthening security in the region and resolving Afghanistan’s problems is improving the efficiency of its own efforts to counteract terrorism in its member states, spread of extremist ideology, invasion of militants, shutting down channels of drug supply from Afghanistan. The SCO intends to involve the Afghan authorities in these joint efforts.

Q.: But is there a common, six-party SCO program, a recipe of joint effort?

A.: The SCO has a common stand on Afghanistan, which was recorded in final documents of several summits, including in the Bishkek Declaration. There is an Action Plan of the SCO and Afghanistan on combating terrorism, illicit drug trafficking and organized crime that was coordinated at the International conference on Afghanistan held under the auspices of the SCO in Moscow in March 2009. There is also a practice of regular consultations on regional security at the level of deputy foreign ministers of the SCO member states, observers and other interested parties. Afghanistan’s leaders have been invited to the meetings of the Council of Heads of State and the Council of Heads of Government for eight successive years, they have spoken at these meetings, letting their SCO counterparts know about their views, concerns and requests.

Kabul is now getting better opportunities to be involved in the SCO’s activities. This first of all means involvement of Afghanistan’s relevant agencies in the work of the RATS (there is a legal framework for this) and Afghan representatives’ more active participation in ministerial and expert meetings on economic and humanitarian problems. As to the SCO’s joint effort with regard to Afghanistan, I am positive that, sooner or later, we will reach the moment when the organization will have a coordinated program of cooperation with the republic. There have already been proposals to this extent.

Q.: Last spring, I attended the SCO Forum in Beijing and met political analysts from Afghanistan. Both from the Forum’s stage and in personal conversations, they firmly objected to the term “Afghan drug threat.” “It is the world that takes drugs, and we are just a poor land where, unfortunately, these drugs are produced,” they said. What do you think?

A.: With regard to this issue, the SCO uses terms that are objectively correct and do not offend our Afghan friends, “the threat of terrorism and illicit drug trafficking coming from the territory of Afghanistan.” Of course, the problem of “Afghan drug trafficking” is multi-faceted. It includes such aspects as existing demand for drugs outside Afghanistan and supply of precursors for production of heroin (sadly, they mainly come from developed European countries). So, of course, we should address the drug problem all together. It is a truly global problem.

Yet I would not agree that our Afghan partners have nothing to do with this problem. The Afghan government needs to be more proactive in fighting planting of black poppy, production of drug supply, drug laboratories and drug smuggling instead of pretending that it is a normal business: Afghan peasants don’t have anything else to do and planting opium is their only source of income. We will continue insisting that the official Afghan authorities fight drug production and trafficking with the help of the international community and those countries that now have their troops stationed in Afghanistan. The SCO member states are willing to provide possible assistance in resolving these problems.

Q.: There were expectations that the SCO would announce that new members were joining its ranks at the Bishkek summit. It is known that several countries – India, Pakistan, and Iran – applied for a permanent member status long ago. But the SCO is in no hurry. What deters it?

A.: Of course, any regional organization, if it is open, is interested in expanding its geography, political influence, and economic opportunities, in increasing the number of its allies and associates, in new members joining its ranks. The same is true for the SCO. The principle of openness is recorded in its founding documents.

At present, the SCO is in the establishment stage and its central tasks are internal consolidation, strengthening of mechanisms of practical cooperation and achieving higher return from joint efforts. But the expansion has long been present on its agenda.

An expansion needs meticulous preparations. It requires making provisions for a lot of aspects, drafting legal documents, thinking through the procedure of granting the member status, working out specific mechanisms for involving the “newcomers” in the organization’s activities. New members will have to learn to work within the alliance they are joining, and the organization itself will also have to adapt to the new members.

Setting itself the task of preparing an expansion – and the SCO has already received official membership applications from Pakistan and Iran, while India has repeatedly said it will seek full SCO membership – the SCO has to be sure that the expansion procedure is thought out thoroughly, and admission of new members will not result in a disruption of the organization’s activities. A lot has been done to achieve this. In 2010, the organization endorsed the Provision on the new members; admission procedure, and in 2011, the framework memorandum on obligations of an applicant in order to receive the status of an SCO member state.

Work is now being completed on documents that will spell out the legal, financial and organizational terms for admission of new members. It will be something like an internal instruction on the SCO admission procedure. When we complete this work and prepare all the necessary documents, then we will start considering official applications.

Q.: Economic cooperation is one of the promising components of the SCO’s activities, which is quite logical. However, this sphere often becomes a target for criticism. What is the truth?

A.: The SCO was set up as an organization whose priority was to counteract new threats and challenges. This task has not been withdrawn: the SCO has been and will be an organization that first of all fights terrorism, separatism, extremism, drug trafficking, transnational organized crime, etc.

In recent years, under the pressure from economic cooperation processes that are gaining momentum in Eurasia and also from the unfavorable situation in the global economy, when countries are trying to make up for difficulties on global markets by participating in regional organizations, more and more voices are calling for boosting the economic component in the SCO’s activities. There is a reason for this: a multilateral union that comprises such economies as Russia, China, Kazakhstan and Central Asian countries has huge opportunities for developing mutually beneficial economic cooperation.

Cooperation in this area is also attractive because it can make a real contribution to the stable social and economic development of the member states, to their national development. We live in a common space, our countries have a lot of common interests, and it would be a shame not to use this economic potential.

As the SCO’s interest in economic cooperation grew, the business community also began acquiring the taste of it. Specific joint projects started emerging. I see this as a crucial difference between the current situation and the one we had two or three years ago.

At the meeting of SCO prime ministers in Bishkek last December, they endorsed the List of Events for further development of project activities within the organization. Besides, a number of interesting ideas are being implemented or considered by the SCO Business Council and the Interbank Association. Now that we have agreed to stick to flexible schemes of cooperation (we should not try to ensure that absolutely all SCO members or their companies participate in a project and make this a prerequisite for its implementation), things will move faster. Two, three or four SCO members, plus an observer and a dialog partner, and a project may become viable. Other players may join it later if they get interested.

Q.: A similar principle seems to have been used to set up the SCO University. What can you say about this innovative project?

A.: The SCO Network University is one of the organization’s most successful humanitarian projects. Today, it unites 69 universities from the SCO member states and Belarus and teaches seven coordinated master’s programs. There are already the first graduates. A new module, the SCO School of Young Scientists, has been launched.

I won’t say that the SCO University doesn’t encounter problems – they are inevitable in the development of this daring initiative. Such a powerful consortium of universities requires adequate management, it is necessary to strengthen the University’s administration, which, it has been decided, will sit in Moscow. It is also necessary to determine sources of financing. The need has aroused to sign an inter-government agreement on the SCO University. We also need to think about ways to improve the efficiency of the education programs, to encourage students who now prefer studying in Russia or China to go study in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan has not yet joined the project, and our common goal is to prove to our Uzbek partners that the SCO University can be beneficial for them, too.

Q.: When the world became aware of the SCO and its philosophy of inter-state relations, the organization was described as the “hope of the world,” the “stronghold of the new international order.” Will the SCO live up to these expectations?

A.: The interest the world and the region show in the SCO – and we feel this interest in the form of applications for membership, expansion of the number of observers and dialog partners, in the kind of the “associates’ club” that has gathered around it, in its expanding ties with international organizations – proves that the SCO is interesting and attracts attention. The SCO is seen as a source of some universal truth, a ray of hope for peace and justice in the region, a model of inter-state partnership.

Cooperation within the SCO is based on equality and respect. This organization gives countries that have their own political philosophy, their own view of how they should develop a possibility not to be on someone else’s team, to voice their views freely and unite efforts if these views are shared.

Remarkably, states that are united in the SCO or around the SCO are those that want to conduct an independent foreign policy in the current international situation. It is no coincidence that the SCO member states, observers and dialog partners include countries that either are considered a regional center of power or have a well-developed self-esteem and highly appreciate their right to have their own opinion. At the same time, they want to work together to strengthen their regional and national security, expand multilateral economic cooperation, give a new quality to cultural and humanitarian ties, therefore cementing their common space. I am positive that the SCO is just beginning to unlock its huge potential.

Q.: Presidency in the SCO has been taken over by Tajikistan, and Dushanbe recently hosted a meeting of the Council of National Coordinators. As a participant of the event, what can you tell us about it?

A.: Indeed, Tajikistan will preside over the SCO in 2013-2014. In mid October, Dushanbe hosted the first meeting of the SCO Council of National Coordinators. We were received by Tajikistan’s Foreign Minister Khamrokhon Zarifi, which clearly shows that our Tajik colleagues take their presidency in the SCO very seriously.

The slogan for Tajikistan’s presidency consists of three “co-s” – Cooperation, Co-development and Co-prosperity. Significant work is planned to improve security cooperation, all the more so that everyone is now thinking of “factor 2014,” the year of a presidential election in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country. The partners are unanimously ready to develop economic interaction and expand the SCO’s international ties. All of the organization’s member states have stated their willingness to assist Tajikistan’s presidency in every way possible.

Q.: I don’t think I will be mistaken if I say that you read our InfoSHOS web portal from time to time…

A.: Yes, I read it regularly. Part of my work is analyzing everything that is published and reported about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and using all opportunities available for informing the broad public about the SCO’s activities and Russia’s participation in it. And I think that even those who are not involved in the SCO’s activities professionally, but are simply interested in international and regional politics, will find a reliable source of information about the SCO and regional affairs in the InfoSHOS portal. So, if anyone is interested in spreading their positive information related to the SCO, the best way to do it is to post it on the portal, and it will immediately spread around the world.

Speaking of media coverage of the SCO’s activities in general, I have to admit that it cannot be described as satisfactory. Unfortunately, this damages the organization’s image for our domestic and foreign readers. Frequently, the SCO is judged partially because it is little known. This means that the possibilities of the SCO member states, their government bodies responsible for information policies and their electronic and print media are not used to their full capacity and there is room for improvement.