All attempts by the West to pressure friendly countries to isolate Russia have failed, Russian Defence Minister General Sergei Shoigu said at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers meet on April 28 and expressed gratitude to the member states for their “principled position and support”.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was willing to establish dominance in the Asia-Pacific region due to which it was integrating groupings like the Quad and the AUKUS into the military alliance, he said.
“The West’s countermeasures for developing multilateralism could be evidently observed in the Asia-Pacific region. There the USA paved the way to disintegration of existing regional security system... The NATO is willing to establish dominance in Asia-Pacific region, that is why QUAD and AUKUS is integrating into the NATO,” General Shoigu said in his address.
In this regard, he said the SCO’s independent policies concerning regional and global security challenges could set an example for international community. “We believe it is important to strengthen the role of SCO as one of the pillars of the new multipolar international system, a model of inter-state relations based on equality and mutual respect, and observance of international law.”
He claimed that the weapons supplied to Ukraine ended up in the black market and then in the hands of terrorists.
NATO countries should take the main responsibility of post-war reconstruction in Afghanistan and they should not be blamed for the current situation there, Gen Shoigu added.
Afghanistan must be kept on SCO agenda
Stating that Afghanistan must be kept on the agenda of the SCO, he said only comprehensive international and regional assistance can facilitate measures to overcome the challenges Afghanistan faces while blaming NATO for the situation there.
On this he said, instead of bearing the main financial expenses of the post-conflict reconstruction in Afghanistan, the U.S. and its allies, under the pretext of countering terrorism, were trying to restore their military presence in Central Asia. “We regard requests to regional countries to deploy military infrastructure as a direct threat to stability in the SCO region. Similarly, we are increasing the combat readiness of the Russian military bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as other response forces to possible challenges.”
He called for the strengthening cooperation within the SCO, as a universal structure that “upholds the principles of multilateralism based on the international law.” Towards this, he made some recommendations for implementation, to develop an information exchange mechanism concerning military security within the SCO, deepen military cooperation with an emphasis on joint exercises and other combat training activities and develop partnerships with other regional integration associations, primarily with the CSTO and CIS.
On information exchange, Gen. Shoigu said the expert working group at the SCO Council of Heads of Defence has drafted an agreement on organisation of information exchange between defence agencies of SCO countries and its protection, which will serve as a basis for such cooperation and called for it to be expedited.
