Sergey Saenko, international observer

In Beijing at the end of September, a working meeting of senior administrative officials of three leading Eurasian regional organizations was held: SCO Secretary General Zhang Ming, CIS Deputy Secretary General Ilkhom Nematov and CSTO Secretary General Imangali Tasmagambetov. The previous similar meeting took place in Moscow in November 2022 at the initiative of the CSTO.

During the current meeting in the Chinese capital, the parties exchanged views on the most pressing issues of international and regional politics, shared assessments of the situation in the field of security and stability in their area of responsibility, and also discussed the current state of cooperation between the three organizations and the prospects for its development.

Particular attention at the meeting was paid to practical interaction in the fight against terrorism and extremism, drug trafficking, and cross-border crime. At the same time, the meeting participants confirmed their intention to maintain and deepen partnerships between the three organizations.

Perhaps the main thing in the event was the speech of Ilkhom Nematov, who expressed gratitude to SCO Secretary General Zhang Ming for organizing the trilateral meeting and assessed the role and place of this organization in the modern world. He, in particular, noted that the SCO is a real factor in ensuring security and sustainable economic growth in the vast expanse of our planet, as evidenced by the growing interest in the organization in the international arena every year.

The Deputy Secretary General of the CIS stated that the meeting in Beijing is taking place against the backdrop of rising international tension and growing confrontation between East and West, which creates significant political, economic and humanitarian difficulties for the whole world. According to Nematov, this poses great challenges for the SCO, CIS and CSTO to join forces in order to confront modern challenges and develop joint measures to solve the problems they face.

He singled out the cultural and humanitarian sphere as one of the important areas of cooperation between the three organizations, which acts as a cementing element of all other areas of interaction. The need to unite the efforts of the SCO, CIS and CSTO to prevent distortion of our common history was also noted, which is especially important in anticipation of the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Victory in 2025.

It should be emphasized here that the meeting held in Beijing once again confirmed the relevance and necessity of such events. This is especially important in conditions when today the world has entered a period of its radical transformation and transition to multipolarity. A peculiarity of the current time is that, along with already existing international organizations, new interstate unions and associations are emerging in order to protect their own interests in the context of modern challenges and threats. In this regard, the SCO, founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, occupies a special place, which was joined by India and Pakistan in 2017, and this year by Iran.

It should be noted that in fact the goals and objectives of the SCO reflect the prospect of actually building relationships between states on the basis of equality and mutually beneficial cooperation. This aspect gives some reason to believe that the SCO, together with BRICS, are capable of becoming those associations that will determine the vector of modern development not only of the countries of the Eurasian continent, but also on a broader scale.

At the same time, it should be especially noted that the reality is that the modern world is developing in conditions of ever-increasing threats and challenges that require the creation of appropriate collective security systems. On the Eurasian continent, one of such systems is the CSTO (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan), which began in 1992. The activities of this organization are aimed at strengthening peace, international and regional security and stability, protecting the independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of the CSTO member states.

Please note that the SCO has partnership agreements with the UN, CIS, ASEAN, CSTO and a number of other international organizations. But the greatest coincidence of interests is observed precisely with the CSTO. Apparently, it is for this reason that a significant number of SCO countries are also members of the CSTO, which is especially important for ensuring the security and stability of the states that are members of these two organizations. By the way, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the SCO and the CSTO back in 2007, on the basis of which regular contacts are maintained and joint work is carried out. For example, last year, at the initiative of the CSTO, another meeting in this format was held in Moscow. And on March 17 of this year, SCO Secretary General Zhang Ming took part in the international conference “Dialogue of Integrations: CIS, SCO, EAEU and BRICS.”

It should be noted here that modern work to protect the sovereignty and independence of states from various types of terrorist attacks and “color revolutions” requires support. In this area, a more effective instrument than the CSTO has not yet been created in the post-Soviet space. Events related to the prevention of a coup d’etat in Kazakhstan in January 2022 through the instant reaction of the CSTO Collective Peacekeeping Forces testify to the effectiveness of this organization. By the way, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly noted that the CSTO helps to ensure the protection of the sovereignty of member countries by coordinating positions at various levels, we add, in close cooperation with the SCO and the CIS.

In this regard, close cooperation of the CSTO with the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) of the SCO and the Anti-Terrorism Center (ATC) of the CIS is quite natural and justified. This gives reason to believe that the relationship in this area between these three organizations in the Eurasian space will develop widely in the future. Such relations are capable of creating a stable and fair system of socio-economic, political and humanitarian security and stability in the area of responsibility of the SCO, CSTO and the CIS.

It should also be said about the cooperation of the three organizations through the ministries of defense. Thus, representatives of the defense departments of the SCO, CSTO and CIS member countries regularly meet at different levels. During these meetings, they focus on various aspects of global and regional security, the need to consolidate efforts to prevent the threat of new wars and armed conflicts, as well as the development of multi-format military cooperation in modern conditions. In addition, various types of military and anti-terrorism exercises of the three organizations are regularly held, and active work is being carried out to further develop multilateral cooperation in the field of military education and training.

Analyzing the close cooperation of the SCO, CIS and CSTO in various fields, we can draw a general conclusion that these three organizations will only get closer in terms of goals and objectives implemented in practice. The context of such rapprochement can be expressed in the following formula: the SCO and the CIS represent “interstate progressive associations,” and the CSTO represents “modern forms of their protection.” In this context, the interaction of the three organizations is an important factor in maintaining peace and safe development of countries not only on the Eurasian continent, but also in the world as a whole. At the same time, speaking about the relations between the SCO, the CIS and the CSTO, it is necessary to emphasize that they are developing on an equal basis and on an increasing basis.