At its July 5 meeting, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), an alliance that groups Russia and China with the former Soviet Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, called on the US and its NATO allies to set a timetable to withdraw their troops from the SCO member states. US-led military forces have been deployed at air bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan since late 2001 to back up the US-led occupation of Afghanistan. Since 2001, Tajikistan’s Dushanbe air base has provided logistical support to the French air forces operating in Afghanistan. Associated Press reported that the SCO call “appeared to be an attempt to push the United States out of a region that Moscow regards as historically part of its sphere of influence and in which China seeks a dominant role because of its extensive energy resources”. Iran, India and Pakistan were admitted to the SCO as observer-members.

From Green Left Weekly, July 13, 2005.
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