ASTANA, August 25 (RIA Novosti) - Membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is in Kazakhstan's greater interest, the Kazakh president said.
"We are part of Asia, and relations with Asian nations meet strategic interests of our country," Nursultan Nazarbayev said on a live broadcast carried on national TV channels. "That is why we are members of the SCO and will support it at all costs."
Nazarbayev said the SCO summit in Astana in July was highly significant.
"The most important thing is that it [the SCO] opens markets for Kazakhstan," said the Kazakh leader.
He said Kazakhstan-China turnover was at $5 billion.
"We have agreed to double the figure," Nazarbayev said before adding that Russia and Kazakhstan would gross $10 billion in trade and intended to double that figure too.
"We would love our trade relations with India, Pakistan, and Iran to be like that," he said. India, Pakistan and Iran have the status of observers in the SCO.
The second area of cooperation within the SCO is security, the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking and other modern challenges, Nazarbayev said.
"One country alone cannot deal with these threats. Countries in the region can only solve these issues through joint efforts," he said.
The SCO was set up in 2001 to promote mutual trust, political, economic, security and other forms of cooperation between its member states that include Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
