While Afghanistan continuously stands as a source of concern and instability for its neighbors, it is natural that these are following the situation around the Hindu Kush with increasing attention. This is especially true for the Central Asian members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), whose last Heads of State’s summit (Bishkek, August 2007) included a joint appeal by the Russian and Afghan Presidents, to have the SCO engaged in easing the Afghan quagmire.

In this context, last month, an original experiment of informal diplomacy took place on the shores of Kyrgyzstan’s Lake Issyk-Kul. The international conference "Afghanistan, SCO, Central Eurasian Security and Geopolitics" brought together a good number of representatives from Afghanistan, China, Iran and the post-Soviet countries in order to discuss how to address the Afghanistan problem by ways alternative to those deployed by the international counter-terrorism coalition. While the initiative – a joint endeavor of Kyrgystan’s Alexander Knyazev foundation and the Afghan Massoud Foundation (lead by the brother of the legendary commander) with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung – fell short of reaching its ambitious aim to elaborate a package of recommendations for the next SCO summit, nevertheless it stood out for a number of reasons.

A first reason was the level and composition of the Afghan delegation, which featured representatives of the main constituencies in the country. Along a central figure of the Tajik community such as Mr. Akhmed Wali Massoud was Abdul Kadyr Dostum, the brother of the leader of the Uzbek community and a member of the Afghan parliament; senator Mohammad Arif Sarvari, the Advisor to the minister for Tribal Affairs Mr. Vahidullah Sabawn. A pashtun and kin of G. Hekmatyar was present, as was the director of the Center for Strategic Studies under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yasin Rasouli, an Hazara, a group traditionally marginalized in Afghan politics. On the whole, this was in itself a fine act of pluralism.

On the other hand, the internal diversity and closeness to the ruling circles of most of the Afghan representatives played against their capacity to contribute to the discussion in a analytical way, as the dominant mood – with the remarkable exception of A. W. Massoud's attacks on the legitimacy of Karzai regime – appeared as if they were conducting official diplomatic negotiations.

Nevertheless, there have been few occasions for such people to meet with colleagues from all over the post-Soviet arena, and the established relationships are likely to bring further talks and initiatives in the future.

An indicative fact was that, even if represented by some observers, the Chinese side was de facto absent, a signal of the cautious position that Beijing prefers to maintain with regard to the developments on the Central Asian chessboard. European representation, too, was far from adequate – with the exception of FES sponsors, an indicator of the particular position Berlin is occupying today in Afghanistan. The conference resulted mainly in a bilateral discussion between Afghans and representatives of post-Soviet countries.

As stated by the Afghani Ambassador in Kazakhstan, Mr. Aziz Arianfar, one essential question was: if NATO fails, will the SCO be able to deal with the renewed threats that this failure will entail? The Russian and Central Asian interventions made clear that the organization is far from being capable to sustain such a scenario.

The reasons are technical as well as political. All the joint exercises held by SCO Armies notwithstanding, the SCO has no mechanism to mobilize troops in operational terms. The best that the SCO can perform is to be included in some of the mechanisms already operating under international patronage or, as stated during the seminar, occupy whatever niche that could open up to its influence. Most speakers underlined that areas to be potentially sub-contracted to SCO preferably lie in the North of the country. This recalls the traditional pattern of interaction between the Eurasian empires, and what was in the last two centuries a buffer zone between Central and South Asia.

The SCO is in fact especially concerned by the impact of the deteriorated situation in Afghanistan on the Tajik border. The departure of the Russian border guards in 2005 resulted in a four-fold increase of drug trafficking across this line, a fact that some have proposed to counteract by means of a joint SCO control of the border, also to offset the massive U.S. involvement.  The U.S. factor emerged in most of the post-soviet interventions as a major hindrance to the SCO’s potential in Afghanistan. It is clear that Washington perceives the actions of Russia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the region as an "irritant", fearing to lose the initiative in the country and therefore not supporting any multilateral effort from this rival block.

In spite of this and other scenarios discussed, it is clear that the political blockages inside the SCO bloc are for the time being overwhelming. It concerns first of all the growing rivalry between China and Russia. While China wants to keep all its options open without being tied down by the SCO framework, Russia is posing the accent for the cooperation with Afghanistan on the multilateral frameworks uniting it with the Central Asian republics (like the Collective Security Treaty Organization). While this was not openly stated, the possible precedent that a Chinese military intervention beyond the Western frontier would create in regional geopolitics was a cause of worry for Central Asians.

One of the most interesting feature of the event was the presence of an Iranian representative, coming from the Institute of Political and International Studies under the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Iran is in fact a player with an enormous potential to contribute in the Afghani stabilization but has largely been kept out of negotiations because of American opposition. Significantly, the final report of the organizers states that “if Afghanistan is made a bridgehead for an American operation against Iran, the latter will certainly retaliate and turn Central Asia into a battlefield where a war would be waged on the United States and the international coalition.”

Given the current stalemate of Western action in Afghanistan, it appears certain that the SCO will further activate its efforts to the South, with members acting to ease the political differences now blocking such involvement. This symposium was relevant in providing preliminary work toward finding the right format for such involvement.