BEIJING: China on Tuesday praised the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), saying the eight-member group in which India is a member has fostered a brand new cooperation model promoting harmonious ties between countries with different social systems.
SCO, whose founding members included China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, on Tuesday celebrated its 20th anniversary.
India and Pakistan were admitted as full members of the Beijing-based organisation in 2017.
Commenting on the 20th anniversary, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing here that over the past two decades, the SCO has navigated the evolving international landscape successfully, blazed a path of cooperation and development under a new type of regional organisation.
The grouping has made important exploration through practice for the building of a new type of international relations fostered a brand-new cooperation model of harmonious co-existence of countries with different social systems and development paths, he said.
The SCO also safeguarded regional security and stability, he said.
Taking security cooperation as a priority, the SCO ratified important legal instruments such as the Convention on Combating Terrorism and the Convention on Combating Extremism, stepped up cooperation in such areas as counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, border defence and information security, he said.
The bloc also held regular joint counter-terrorism exercises, and promoted the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan through the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group, creating a peaceful and stable environment for the development of regional countries, he said.