Friday, 16 June 2006LONDON, June 16 (IranMania) - The United States pointed out what it called contradictions between the goals and work of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, but stopped short of calling it anti-American.
"The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has a stated goal of increasing cooperation and furthering national goals of fighting terrorism, improving infrastructure, increasing the prosperity of the nations in the region and fighting narcotics," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
"Now, in practice there have been a couple of things, developments that would seem to run counter to those stated goals," the spokesman said when a reporter asked about the Shanghai summit comprising China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and observers: India, Iran Mongolia and Pakistan.
McCormack referred to the declaration of Astana in which OCS members sought in July 2005 a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
"The ... declaration in which they called for a set timetable of pulling out multinational forces from Afghanistan when, in fact, Afghanistan was not a state that signed up to that particular statement.
"We think that that was a counterproductive statement. Certainly, it would run counter to the idea of fighting terrorism in the region.
He also criticized the participation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"Certainly, having Iran there as an observer, Iran, the world's largest or most significant state sponsor of terrorism, again runs counter to the idea that this is a group dedicated in part to countering terrorism in the region."
He added that he did not see the OCS as an anti-American organization.
Friday, June 16, 2006 - T®2005 IranMania.com
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Friday, 16 June 2006
Iran
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