BEIJING, August 19 (RIA Novosti, Alexei Yefimov) - A Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) -Afghanistan contact group will begin work soon, a Russian diplomat told a news conference Friday.
Grigory Logvinov, Russia's permanent envoy to the SCO, said the final procedural details were being worked out and the first meeting of the group would be held soon.
According to Logvinov, the group will comprise representatives of the SCO Secretariat, permanent envoys of the member countries and representatives of the Afghan Embassy in China.
The meetings will be held, most probably, in Beijing, he said.
He said the SCO had been formed primarily to counter the Taliban threat and that Afghanistan remained a major source of terrorism and narcotics.
"The SCO is willing to help settle the situation in Afghanistan through a cooperative effort with other international organizations such as NATO and the OSCE," the diplomat said.
The SCO currently comprises Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
According to Logvinov, the addition of India, Iran and Pakistan to the SCO as observers turned the organization into an important player on the global arena.
