The summit started with the meeting of the heads of states in the limited circle. Presidents of Uzbekistan, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan participated in the meeting.

They discussed coordination of joint activities to soften the influence of the world financial crisis in SCO member states, cooperation in strengthening security, situation in Afghanistan and other issues.

Islam Karimov put forward the proposal to create a new international mechanism under the UN aegis to solve the Afghan problem - the 6+3 Contact Group consisting of six states neighboring Afghanistan and representatives of Russia, USA and NATO.

The President noted that it was important to demonstrate full respect to the deep historical roots of the multilational people of Afghanistan, to all confessions and traditional values of Islam, and reach the necessary consensus within the country.

The SCO leaders also considered issues of development of the organization, improvement of the activity of its structures and expansion of cooperation with observer states and other regional structures.

In the expanded session of the council, representatives of the observer states participated, including Indian Prime Minister, President of Iran, President of Pakistan, First Vice Premier of Mongolia and as a guest of the summit President of Afghanistan.

The participants considered further development of the SCO, cooperation in srtengthening financial, power, information, environmental and food security, economic, scientific, technical and humanitarian cooperation.

At the end fo the summit, the SCO leaders signed the Yekaterinburg declaration, the Convention against terrorism and other documents.

The Republic of Uzbekistan assumed the chairmanship in the SCO until the organization’s next summit in 2010, UzA reported.