Prosecutors-general from Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states held a meeting, the sixth of its kind, at the Intercontinental Hotel in Tashkent on 7 November.

Participants in the meeting were prosecutors-general and heads of prosecution agencies from Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Mirzakan Subanov, director of the Executive Committee of the SCO Regional Antiterrorist Structure, also participated in the meeting. The meeting was presided over by Rashid Qodirov, the Uzbek prosecutor-general.

The meeting discussed cooperation between the prosecutors-general’s offices in fighting terrorism, other violent manifestations of extremism, the illegal trade in narcotics, psychotropic substances and their precursors. It also discussed strengthening cooperation and speeding up information exchange between the prosecutors’ offices in fighting illegal trade, as well as forming the normative and legal basis for interdepartmental legal cooperation.

At the same time, the participants expressed serious concern over a growing trend in the scale of international terrorism, extremism, separatism, the illegal trade in narcotics, psychotropic substances and their precursors, smuggling and other types of international organized crime that pose a threat to stability and security in the region, resisting which would be possible only by joining efforts, sticking to agreed principles and mechanisms.

Annual meetings between prosecutors-general are an effective method to implement decisions made by the SCO heads of state on developing and strengthening legal cooperation in fighting international terrorism and other dangerous types of organized crime. The meeting held in Tashkent became a continuation of this process.

The meeting resulted in the signing of a protocol that contains the main areas where legal cooperation in resisting terrorism, separatism and extremism, the illegal trade in narcotics and psychotropic substances, and other types of transnational organized crime, will be expanded and deepened further.

A decision was also made to continue forming the normative and legal basis for interdepartmental cooperation in the prosecution agencies’ urgent areas of activity.