Iran’s accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation would be completed in July, said the country’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdullahi on Thursday. Notably, the membership of the observer countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Iran and Belarus, was under consideration for almost a month now.
Iran’s accession to Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
According to the local news agency, Hossein said, “We will become a full-fledged member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in July when the next summit of the association is to take place.” The last summit was hosted in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on September 15-16, which was attended by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
At that time, the Islamic Republic signed a memorandum of commitment to obtain the status of a member state of the association. The next summit is scheduled to be held on July 4 under the chairmanship of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a virtual format.
On May 30, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of India announced that all members of the organisation would take part in the summit. India has also invited Iran, Belarus and Mongolia as observers. In addition, Turkmenistan is invited as a guest. The inclusion of the observer countries of the SCO has been in discussions.
Not only Iran but Belarus would also look forward to being included in the SCO. Minister of Defense of Belarus, Major General Viktor Khrenin and Iranian Defence Minister Mohammad Reza Gharaei Ashtiani participated in the meeting in the national capital that was chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, reported ANI.
The SCO has been hosted by India this year, and Goa has prepared to welcome all of the SCO member states’ foreign ministers. The most important work before the SCO Foreign Ministers would be to assess the status of decisions that would be approved at the SCO Summit in New Delhi in July.
Currently, SCO has Russia, India, China, Pakistan and four Central Asian countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as its members. If consideration is accepted by the SCO member on Iran and Belarus to take as new members of SCO, it will have 10 members by next year.
Source » republicworld