The Shanghai Cooperation Organization will take further steps, such as to set up a database of terrorist organizations and take joint anti-terrorism excises, to strike on terrorism.

The database of terrorist organizations is already being filled with concrete data from SCO member states and will be completed in 2007, according to Sergei Smirnov, board chairman of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Center (RATC).

The RATC will set up a secure communication system for security services and train instructors for counter-terrorist units, Smirnov, also first deputy director of the Russian Federal Security Service, told a RATC session in Tashkent.

Smirnov said the RATC will prepare a number of counter-terrorist exercises, and many SCO member states have already expressed their willingness to host them, local news agency reported.

The SCO, established in 2001 in the Chinese city of Shanghai, groups China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its regional anti-terror agency, the RATC, came into operation in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent in 2004.

The Tashkent session of the RATC is the first session in 2007 held under Russia's chairmanship.

During the meeting, delegates from six SCO member states passed the draft of the RATS 2006 report that will be submitted to the Council of Heads of State, the organization's highest body.

The meeting highly praised RATS's work in 2006 and expressed hopes as well as suggestions on its 2007 action plan.

The RATS approved several basic legal documents on taking further steps against regional terrorism, separatism and extremism, as well as documents on personnel reshuffling and financial supervision. The organization also decided to hold its next meeting in September in Russia.

(Xinhua News Agency March 29, 2007)