Iran’s Full SCO Membership on Agenda at Next Summit

The acceptance of Iran as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will be one of the highlights of the upcoming SCO summit in New Delhi, Bakhtiyer Khakimov, Russia’s presidential representative for SCO affairs, said.  
“Iran’s accession as a full member will be one of the key decisions of the July 4 summit that will take place in New Delhi via video conference,” he said.
“Iran has completed the mandatory procedures and will join the family of SCO member states at the New Delhi summit,” he said, addressing a session titled “Integration in the Name of Development: Practical Aspects of Cooperation Under the SCO” at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Khakimov also pointed to another important decision that will be made at the SCO summit. “A memorandum will be signed on Belarus’ obligations aimed at obtaining the status of a member state,” he noted. “Belarus is doing its best to speed up this process, and the idea is seen very positively within the organization,” the diplomat added, TASS reported.
The Indian Foreign Ministry announced earlier that a meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State would take place online on July 4.
In addition to the SCO’s eight member states, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia have been invited to the event as observer states.
SCO is a transcontinental political, economic and security alliance, which has a total of eight members. Iran is the observer SCO country that is set to become a full member of the charter.
The SCO was founded by China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan at a summit held in Shanghai in 2001.
China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, India, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are its current full members. Iran, Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia are observer states.
Iran first applied for membership in the alliance 15 years ago. The approval of Iran’s candidacy came at a summit in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe in September 2021.
The organization accounts for 40% of the world’s population and 28% of the global gross domestic product.