BEIJING, June 11 (INP): China will promote neighborhood diplomacy on the platform of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), officials said here on Tuesday.

President Xi Jinping will be in Central Asia from Wednesday to Sunday for state visits to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and for the summit of the SCO and that of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA).

According to Zhang Hanhui, against the backdrop of growing uncertainties worldwide, his trip is expected to further consolidate multi-dimensional cooperation within the frameworks of the SCO and the CICA and pool efforts to create a shared future of security and prosperity for all countries in the region.

According to the officials, leaders of the SCO member states will gather in Kyrgyzstan's capital of Bishkek for this year's summit and are expected to declare a unified stance on major regional and international issues.

When the SCO was founded in June 2001, its primary mission was to build mutual trust, safeguard trans-border security and boost anti-terrorism cooperation.

Over the past 18 years, the SCO has grown into the world's largest regional organization for comprehensive cooperation in terms of both the area it covers and the population it represents. Cooperation among member states has been largely enriched in such fields as security, economy and people-to-people exchanges.

As for the SCO's next stage of development, Xi, in a speech at the SCO Qingdao summit in 2018, called on countries involved in the regional bloc to work closely to build an SCO community with a shared future.

The SCO can take a leap forward in promoting the building of such a community, said Shi Ze, standing director of the Chinese Center for Shanghai Cooperation Organization Studies.

Because the SCO member states are faced with common challenges in security and economic development, they share a broad consensus on many issues, he added.

During the SCO summit, Xi will exchange views with leaders of the participating countries on the status quo and prospects of SCO's development, as well as major international and regional issues.

The leaders will "discuss new ideas and new measures to jointly address risks and challenges, and promote security, stability, development and revitalization under the current situation," according to Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Hanhui.

INP/J/SB/AJ