By Deutsche Welle
03 Jul 2024, 11:40 AM EDT
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Astana on Wednesday (3.07.2024) in on the eve of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit to hold meetings with other leadersincluding China’s Xi Jinping and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, amid the war with Ukraine and tensions with the West.
The nine member countries of the SCO, which stretches from Moscow to Beijing, encompass nearly half the world’s population.
Its permanent members are the host Kazakhstan, India, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Iranthe latter to be added in 2023.
Belarus is expected to join this year, as announced at last year’s SCO summit, hosted virtually by India.
“On July 3-4, the leaders of the SCO member countries will discuss the state and prospects for deepening the organization’s multifaceted cooperation,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
He added that Putin plans to meet bilaterally with several of the summit attendees.
Tokayev: Relations with China in a “period of development”
Kazakhstan President Kasym-Yomart Tokayev stressed on Wednesday that relations with China are experiencing a “golden period of development” while meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, who is making his fifth state visit to the former Soviet republic in Central Asia.
“Kazakhstan attaches great importance to strengthening good neighborliness and the centuries-old friendship between our countries (…). We can say that our bilateral relations have entered a new golden era of development,” said the Kazakh leader.
He stressed that China is Kazakhstan’s largest trade and investment partner and that in the last 30 years trade between the two countries has increased a hundredfold, reaching a record figure of 41 billion dollars last year.
“No matter how the international situation changes, our aspirations to preserve friendship with Kazakhstan, our determination to develop multifaceted cooperation and our commitment to supporting each other on key issues will remain unchanged,” Xi said.
The Chinese president also expressed the hope that both countries will make joint efforts. to build a more dynamic and meaningful community for the “common destiny of humanity.”
According to Xi, this task has taken on new significance in the current international situation, as positive efforts are needed to create stability in the region and around the world.
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