The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states will share information, especially on security issues, and provide active support to China to ensure a smooth 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, SCO Secretary-General Bolat Nurgaliev said yesterday.

"The Beijing Olympics will help strengthen friendship among nations," he said. "Also, it would provide good experience for Russia when it hosts the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014."

The member states will take a series of steps to expand their areas of the cooperation into education, culture and health, he said. A university program is on agenda to offer people in the SCO member states a better chance to learn each other's languages, history, literature and modern politics.

Also, the SCO member states will "focus on balancing the relationship among the main energy providing, consuming and exporting countries," Nurgaliev said.

According to B. Lynn Pascoe, under-secretary-general for political affairs of the UN, the heads of state of the six SCO members discussed the world body's relations with regional organizations and the proposal to set up a UN office in Central Asia during the Bishkek summit.

Last week, Pascoe said the UN had made a good start on working on ties with the SCO, and that China and Russia were the main driver of the organization, according to the UN website.

"The SCO is a multinational cooperative organization, aimed at strengthening peace and economic development in Central Asia," Chen Yurong, an expert with China Institute of International Studies, said on Tuesday.

(China Daily August 23, 2007)