The 13th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit is held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Sept 13, 2013. [Photo/Xinhua]

BISHKEK - Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) leaders conducted in-depth exchanges of views and reached broad consensus on issues such as good-neighborly relations and key global and regional affairs during the bloc's 13th summit that closed Friday.

The meeting of the SCO Heads of State Council was held at a time when international and regional situation was getting increasingly complicated and the SCO was faced with fresh opportunities and challenges.

Analysts said that the summit will provide added impetus to safeguard regional security, deepen economic cooperation and improve people's livelihood and advance the sound steady development of the regional bloc.

SECURITY COOPERATION REMAINS TOP PRIORITY

Cooperation on security, which has been one of its key tasks since the SCO was founded in Shanghai in 2001, will remain the bloc's top priority and primary objective for quite some time in the future.

In a joint declaration issued here on Friday, the SCO leaders called for concerted efforts to fight international terrorism, separatism, extremism, transnational organized crime and other illicit activities and improve the legal basis for cooperation in these areas.

Zhang Xinfeng, director of the Executive Committee of the SCO's Regional Anti-Terrorism Agency, said that the "three evil forces" (of terrorism, separatism and extremism) tend to propagate religious extremism and recruit more followers via the Internet and are highly interconnected with drug trafficking, weapons smuggling and organized crime.

He said that the organization will strengthen its ability in processing information and coordinating the cyber security agencies of member states to fight against the "three evil forces."

Confronted with the complicated international situation, SCO members have adopted common positions on a series of hot-spot issues and made known to the world their strong resolve to safeguard regional security and stability, advance regional development and prosperity, establish a more equitable international order and promote world peace and development.

On the Syria issue, the member states expressed their grave concern and advocated that the region should achieve peace, stability, prosperity and progress without external interference, especially the interference of force, unauthorized by the UN Security Council.

They also voiced support for putting the chemical weapons under the supervision of the international community and suggested Syria join the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction.