ASTANA, July 5: The leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a six-nation security bloc, called for a deadline to be set on the pullout of Western bases from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and criticized outside interference in their affairs at a summit here on Tuesday.

At the meeting in the Kazakh capital Astana, the SCO, which comprises Russia, China, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, signed a declaration that called for deadlines to be set on the presence of military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, set up in 2001 by the United States.

“Considering that the active phase of the military anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan has finished, member states... consider it essential that the relevant participants in the anti-terrorist coalition set deadlines for the temporary use” of bases in Central Asia, the declaration read.

At what was their first meeting since the ouster of Kyrgyz leader Askar Akayev in March and a military crackdown in Uzbekistan in May, the leaders also included a clause on the inadmissibility of ‘monopolizing or dominating international affairs’ — apparently a reference to growing US influence in Central Asia.

“This declaration calls for templates and standards not to be imposed by force, or the threat of force,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

“There should be no place for interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states,” Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said.

Tuesday’s declaration echoes a similar one on the ‘21st century international order’ signed by Mr Putin and Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in Moscow last week.

It follows a string of complaints by leaders such as Uzbek President Islam Karimov suggesting that the West was behind uprisings in three former Soviet republics in the last two years – Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.

The Shanghai group leaders also signed a commitment not to harbour persons sought by each other’s security forces.

The latter appeared to fly in the face of recent Western criticism of the mountain republic of Kyrgyzstan for handing back to Uzbek authorities four people who fled the May violence in eastern Uzbekistan.

The Shanghai group has made fighting alleged extremism in the region its top priority, while also trying to use the forum to boost economic ties.

Human rights groups have said that member states use the perceived threat of extremism as an excuse to crack down on the political opposition and other dissenters.

Relations between Central Asian states and Western countries have cooled since the events in Uzbekistan in May, amidst widespread condemnation from rights groups that claim Uzbek troops killed hundreds of unarmed civilians.

Karimov on Tuesday thanked the leaders of Russia and China for recent support, while saying that outside forces were threatening to “hijack stability and impose their model of development” on Central Asia.—AFP