MOSCOW. March 12 (Interfax-AVN) - The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) should be seen as the world's second pole, said Leonid Ivashov, the president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences.
"In drafting a project of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization we laid down the profile of the world's second pole. A man cannot stand on one leg because bipolarity is in his nature," Ivashov said at a session of the Collective Security Treaty Organization's research expert council in Moscow on Wednesday.
The SCO is meant to keep the balance of forces and interests and to build security in Central Asia, he said.
China faces the same threats as Russia, he said. "Again, it is the U.S. missile defense and the same financial and economic threats," Ivashov said.
At the same time, countries such as India, Iran and Pakistan were invited as SCO observers to compensate "China's cravings," he said.
SCO members are China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Mongolia, Iran, India and Pakistan have an observer status at SCO.