A meeting of foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countries was held on Friday in the capital of Uzbekistan, Tashkent. This regional organization dealing with issues of security, economics and humanitarian cooperation continues to expand: Belarus has recently applied for membership in it. For Russia, which is trying to show that it is not at all isolated, strengthening associations with its participation is beneficial.
The main task of the foreign ministers of the SCO member countries was the preparation of the meeting of the Council of Heads of State, which will be held in Samarkand on September 15-16. Ebrahim Raisi, the president of Iran, who is preparing to become a full member of the organization, is also expected to take part in the event. Recall that it all began in 2001 with six states – the “Shanghai Five” formed in 1996 (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Russia and Tajikistan) and Uzbekistan, which joined it. Today, there are eight countries in the SCO: in 2017, India and Pakistan became members of the organization.
Iran, which has had observer status in the SCO since 2005, applied for full membership in 2008. But until 2015, Tehran could not be accepted into the association due to international sanctions in force against it. According to the rules of the SCO, a country under the sanctions of the UN Security Council cannot become a member, and a number of restrictive measures were applied to Iran. The sanctions were lifted in 2015 when Tehran agreed to limit its nuclear program. But even this did not open the door to the SCO for him – the Iranian application was blocked by Tajikistan, with which Iran had a conflict. It was only possible to resolve it in 2021, after which Tehran’s application was finally given the green light. Now the Iranian side is going through the formal procedures necessary to join the organization.
In mid-July, Belarus also applied for admission to the SCO, since 2010 it has had observer status with the organization.
Minsk hopes that his request will be considered in an expedited manner. So, apparently, it will be: following the results of the meeting in Tashkent, and. about. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan, currently chairing the SCO, Vladimir Norov, said that the application of Belarus is now “actively being studied.” “There is a common understanding that the addition of the SCO family will give a significant impetus to multiple interactions in ensuring regional security, the development of trade and investment cooperation, and will contribute to the development of a huge transit potential in the spaces of our organization,” he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also told reporters: “There is a consensus on Belarus to begin its accession (to the SCO.— “uh”) as a full member”. According to him, “the agenda of the summit in Samarkand appears to be very solid, rich, and it is especially symbolic that a kind of queue is lined up for the Samarkand summit from those wishing to become full members of the SCO or join as observers and dialogue partners.”
Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are expected to receive SCO dialogue partner status in September.
The process of granting such status to Bahrain and the Maldives will be launched. Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia and Nepal claim the status of an observer at the SCO (it is higher than the status of a dialogue partner).
Under President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine was also actively interested in the observer status at the SCO, hoping, among other things, to attract new investments in this way and increase its role as a transit state. Today, however, no one remembers this – neither in Kyiv, nor in the ranks of the SCO itself.
The foreign ministers of the association also preferred (at least in the open part of the meeting) not to develop the theme of the Russian military operation in Ukraine. Thus, Vladimir Norov said in general terms that “the era of a fundamental turning point in international relations and global restructuring” is coming, accompanied by “increasing factors of instability and economic uncertainty.”
Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi said that the SCO “is entering its third decade against the backdrop of very complex global processes.”
At the same time, he (like other ministers of the member countries of the association) rested on the fact that “the SCO remains a space of stability and development.”
Such a characterization of the organizational space can, of course, be given only with a stretch. At the beginning of the year, Kazakhstan itself was swept by a wave of riots, for the sake of suppressing which a contingent of forces of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) had to be temporarily brought into the country. In July, the Uzbek authorities had to deal with the protesters. Skirmishes occur every now and then on the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan due to disagreements in the definition of territorial boundaries. India has a very tense relationship with Pakistan and a difficult one with China. And all of this is taking place against the backdrop of an ever-troubling Afghanistan that borders the five current SCO members and Iran.
Russia, however, has good relations with all members of the association. Its strengthening and expansion plays into its hands in conditions of tough confrontation with Western structures. It is not for nothing that the Russian Foreign Ministry provided a photo of Sergey Lavrov with colleagues from seven SCO member countries and representatives of the secretariat of the organization with a commentary, the essence of which boils down to the fact that with such a density of contacts, it is clearly not necessary to talk about Russia’s isolation.