The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) Regional Counter-Terrorism Structure (RCTS) held its 22nd session in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. According to news reports, the group reached agreement on new measures in the fight against cyber terrorism.
The SCO was founded in 2001 and comprises of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan with Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan as observers and Belarus, Sri Lanka and Turkey as dialogue partners. RCTS focuses on issues related to fighting terrorism, separatism and extremism, and is based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.1
Internet security has been on the agenda of SCO meetings for many years, and the organisation is showing growing ambition to play a bigger role in the domain. According to news reports, the 22nd RCTS meeting focused on counter-terrorist activities and yielded an agreement on urgent measures ‘to combat the use or potential use of computer networks for terrorist, separatist and extremist ends.’ Such an agreement would allow closer cooperation between the member states and RCTS to provide ‘legal guidance and make recommendations to enforce transnational standards.’2
Unfortunately, no further information about the meeting or agreement was available on the SCO website.
- SCO, The Executive Committee of the Regional Counter-Terrorism Structure, http://www.sectsco.org/EN123/AntiTerrorism.asp [↩]
- Upadhyay, Dadan. “SCO members to cooperate in war on cyber terrorism,”Russia & India Report, April 2, 2013. http://indrus.in/world/2013/04/02/sco_members_to_cooperate_in_war_on_cyb… [↩]