© AFP / Vyacheslav OseledkoRussian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani walk as they attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Heads of State in Bishkek on June 14, 2019.
President Rouhani blasts US leader Donald Trump as 'a serious threat to regional and world stability', offers preferential treatment to SCO companies that invest in his country
With the dogs of war on full alert, something extraordinary happened at the 19th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) late last week in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
Virtually unknown across the West,
the SCO is the foremost Eurasian political, economic and security alliance. It's not a Eurasian NATO. It's not planning any humanitarian imperialist adventures. A single picture in Bishkek tells a quite significant story, as we see China's Xi, Russia's Putin, India's Modi and Pakistan's Imran Khan aligned with the leaders of four Central Asian "stans".
These leaders represent the current eight members of the SCO. Then there are four observer states - Afghanistan, Belarus, Mongolia and, crucially, Iran - plus six dialogue partners: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and, crucially, Turkey.
Comment: Even though it means throwing good money after bad, the US will string along the pathetic Ukrainian military with just enough toys to keep the pot simmering in the Donbass, happily located on Russia's south eastern flank.