SCO officials from Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan met Friday to discuss the Tian Shan-2 2011 exercises at a session of the SCO Council Regional Counter-Terrorism unit in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, Interfax-Agentstvo Veonnykh Novostei news agency reported Friday.

Friday's agenda also included a report addressing the implementation of the SCO's 2010-12 program of cooperation in combating terrorism, separatism and extremism. SCO Regional Counter-Terrorism unit Executive Committee Director Zhenisbek Zhumanbekov was to deliver the report.

Other items on the agenda include SCO cooperation with the U.N. Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee and the secretariat of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

The SCO was founded in Shanghai in 2001 and includes Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and was seen at the time as a counterpart of the defunct Soviet-led Warsaw pact whose primary purpose was both to counter NATO and retain Russian influence in Central Asia while acknowledging growing Chinese influence there.

SCO observer countries include India, Mongolia and Pakistan as well as Iran.

U.S. concerns about the organization's intentions were heightened when in 2007 the Bush administration's request for observer status was declined.

A divergence of opinion between the two leading SCO members quickly developed, as while the Russian Federation viewed the alliance primarily as a loose military grouping designed to combat outside powers' penetration of the area, particularly rising U.S. military influence in the region in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

China, while ostensibly supporting Russia's opposition to regional "hegemony," was more interested in the SCO Central Asian junior members' massive natural gas and oil energy assets.

The dichotomy has persisted to the present day.

This divergence of concerns between the Russian Federation and China is mirrored in security issues.

Within the SCO the Russian Federation and China share a common concern with their fellow Central Asian SCO members about rising Islamic militancy in Eurasia. However, Russia continues to direct its concerns westward toward NATO's eastward expansion in the post-Soviet space. China, meanwhile, has security concerns that remain focused most notably over its restive western province of Xinjiang, U.S. policy toward Taiwan and possible disruptions of Chinese maritime energy imports from the Middle East, the last of which heightens Chinese concerns about securing access to Central Asia's hydrocarbon resources.

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