China was in the headlines of media dealing with Kyrgyzstan for a whole week. In this case China kept appearing in different contexts. First of all the discussion was concentrated on the issues of Kyrgyz-China negotiations that Kurmanbek Bakiev started during his two days visit to Beijing. According to RFERL Bakiev was expected to sign several agreements in the sphere of trade and economy. As analysts claimed this was another signifier for the growing importance Kyrgyzstan ascribes to its cooperation with China.

Another big issue in the press was an upcoming meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Beijing. This organization’s growing influence on the geopolitical issues in Central Asia poses yet another challenge to the Western ambitions of dominance in the region and creates a ground for tensions between such super powers as America, China and Russia. Since two latter countries happened to be members if the SCO the situation gets even trickier.

In light of this the press in the past week paid lots of attention to the preparation of the SCO meeting, which was scheduled for June 15th . The upcoming meeting in China has two main issues that can potentially serve as a trigger for misunderstanding between the countries in the West and members of the organization. The first burning issue that is to be discussed is the future of the American military presence in Central Asia. For what seems to be an issue for bilateral negotiations between America and countries hosting US military bases SCC already claimed its position. Thus in summer 2005 SCO called for Washington to set a date by which to withdraw from military bases in Central Asia. One year later Kyrgyz president Bakiev set a deadline for evicting American troops from Kyrgyzstan by June 1 in case America doesn’t agree to pay an increased rent for keeping the base on the ground. The deadline was stretched but Bakiev never agreed to make a final decision prior to this year’s meeting of SCO. Though amidst the growing concerns that China and Russia will be pushing Kyrgyzstan to force Americans out other member states of the organization think that there will be more important issues to resolve at the upcoming meeting. Thus according to Kazakh Foreign Minister Qasymzhomart Toqaev the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will hardly deliver a “diplomatic attack” on the U.S. military presence in Central Asia. (RFERL)

The question than is what are more serious issues that can shake the public are in the agenda of SCO? One surprising statement of the Kyrgyz president can shed the light on the challenging agenda of the upcoming summit. In his interview to one of the Russian TV channels Kurmanbek Bakiev announced that he supports an initiative of enlarging SCO and accepting Iran into this organization (Gazeta.kg).

Amidst the nuclear tensions between Iran and the West this remark of the Kyrgyz president indeed doesn’t seem to be well timed. It’s exactly today when official Tehran issues a statement that Iran will not negotiate over its right to enrich uranium.(RFERL). It was also announced that some countries are already about to seek UN sanctions against Iran.

In this light the statement of the Kyrgyz president seems to be rather problematic and questionable especially considering the fact that only one week ago o May 30 the speaker of the Kyrgyz parliament Marat Sultanov supported the idea of Kazakhstan not to accept any new members to SCO before internal problem of the organization are resolved among members.(Fergana.ru)

Thus it’s possible to conclude that member states of the SCO really stand on different positions nowadays regarding a whole of array of issues. After June 15th we’ll probably know whether these are just minor controversies or fundamental disagreements.