Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said this week that people of Afghanistan need “good neighbors” and said it was “moral obligation” for countries in the region to help.

In an article for The Indian Express, Mirziyoyev wrote: “Afghanistan that has played for centuries the role of a buffer in the historical confrontations of global and regional powers, should try on a new peaceful mission of connecting Central and South Asia.”

In this context, he said the construction of the “trans-Afghan corridor” could become a symbol of such mutually beneficial inter-regional cooperation.

“It is also important to understand that by implementing joint infrastructure projects such as the Termez – Mazar-i-Sharif – Kabul – Peshawar railroad, we are not just solving socio-economic, transport and communication problems, but also making a significant contribution to ensuring regional security,” Mirziyoyev said.

Mirziyoyev’s article was published ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit which is scheduled to be held on Wednesday and Thursday.

“I am full of confidence that it is important and necessary for the SCO to share its success story with Afghanistan. This country is an integral part of the larger SCO space. The Afghan people need good neighbors and their support now more than ever. It is our moral obligation to extend a helping hand, to offer them effective ways of overcoming the years-long crisis by promoting socio-economic growth of the country, its integration into regional and global development processes,” he said.

“By bringing our positions closer to each other, together we can develop a new SCO agenda for a more peaceful, stable and prosperous Afghanistan. Only in this way can we create a truly stable and sustainable SCO space with an indivisible security,” he wrote.

He said: “The basis for the SCO’s international attractiveness is its non-bloc status, openness, non-targeting against third countries or the international organizations, equality and respect for the sovereignty of all participants, refusal to interfere in the internal affairs, as well as prevention of political confrontation and unhealthy rivalry.”

“The SCO’s success concept is the promotion of multifaceted cooperation through ensuring regional security. In fact, the SCO is called upon to become a pole of attraction without dividing lines, in the name of peace, cooperation and progress,” he wrote.

The SCO summit will be attended by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi among other leaders.