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Kyrgyzstan beefs up security ahead of Shanghai Cooperation Organization premiers’ meeting

BISHKEK, October 31. /TASS/. Kyrgyzstan’s Interior Ministry has stepped up security measures ahead of the November 3 meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Bishkek, a senior ministry official said on Monday.

The law enforcers have been put on high alert to protect "the areas close to the places where the foreign delegations stay, their routes and also places of mass gathering," chief of the ministry’s patrol police department Erkin Bayev said.

The police will also check all vehicles entering the capital. "Security will be tightened until November 3," he said. Some 3,000 police personnel will maintain security and public order.

The ministry earlier reported that firearms had been temporarily seized from local residents ahead of the meeting.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a permanent regional association founded in Shanghai, China, on June 15, 2001. Its priority tasks include joint counteraction to terrorism and extremism; cooperation in education as well as in the energy, oil and gas, transport, communication and other spheres. At present, the SCO comprises Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.