TASHKENT, October 25. /TASS/. More than 550 terrorist attacks have been prevented in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states in the past three years, SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) Deputy Director Akhat Mukashev said at the 12th meeting of chief justices of the SCO countries.

"In the past three years, agencies involved in cooperation within the RATS, prevented more than 550 terrorism and extremism-related crimes," he said. According to the regional coordination center, over this period, more than 1,500 terrorists were either eliminated or detained, while over 200 people were prevented from going to foreign countries to join illegal armed groups. Besides, over 700 improvised explosive devices, 50 tonnes of explosives and more than 6,000 firearms were seized.

"All this is done not on the Syrian-Iraqi border, in Afghanistan or Pakistan, but in the SCO member states," Mukashev stressed. He added that cooperation within the RATS had helped block bank accounts of 2,000 individuals involved in financing terrorism, while internet access to 100,000 websites promoting terrorist and extremist content was restricted.

"Courts in the SCO member states outlawed 105 international terrorist organizations," the RATS deputy director said. He pointed out that at the June 2017 summit, the SCO countries signed a Convention on Countering Extremism. Mukashev was confident that member states would also adopt regulations aimed at penalizing various kinds of extremist activities.

SCO countries

The Declaration on the Establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was singed in China’s Shanghai in June 2001 by six founding states - Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. At the 2017 summit, India and Pakistan became full-fledged SCO members.

Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia currently enjoy observer status while Sri Lanka, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia and Nepal are dialogue partners. The organization is headquartered in Uzbekistan’s capital of Tashkent.