SCO RATS supportsconducting joint exercisesin India and Kazakhstan

TASHKENT (TASS): The Council of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (RATS SCO) at its 37th meeting in Tashkent supported the proposal to hold joint anti-terrorist exercises “Manesar – Antiterror 2022” in India and Kazakhstan in 2022 and the joint border operation “Friendship Border – 2022”. This was announced on Friday by the press service of the structure.
“We supported the proposals of the Indian side to hold in 2022 on the territory of the Republic of India the anti-terrorist exercise of the competent authorities of the SCO member states “Manesar – Antiterror 2022”, as well as the Kazakh side of the joint border operation of the competent authorities of the SCO member states “Friendship Border – 2022”, – the message says.
According to the press service, the next 38th meeting of the SCO RATS Council will be held in October this year in India. It is also reported that at the last meeting, the representative of Uzbekistan, Ruslan Mirzaev, took over as director of the SCO RATS.
RATS is a permanent structure of the SCO, established in 2002 to counter terrorism, extremism and separatism. At present, the SCO members are India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. Observer countries in the SCO are Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia, partner countries are Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey and Sri Lanka.
At the SCO summit in Dushanbe in September 2021, the procedure for admitting Iran to the organization was launched. The headquarters of RATS is located in Tashkent.