Belarus hoping to join SCO in H1 2023 - Lukashenko

MINSK. March 9 (Interfax) - Belarus is planning to enter into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in the first half of this year, before the SCO summit in New Delhi, President Alexander Lukashenko said at a meeting with SCO Secretary General Zhang Ming on Thursday, as reported by the First Man's Pool Telegram channel close to the presidential administration.

"We have set the ambitious goal of covering the road to membership in this organization before the summit in New Delhi. That would be good experience for the others," Lukashenko said.

The SCO summit will be held in New Delhi, India, on June 24-25, 2023.

Lukashenko and Zhang are discussing procedural technicalities of Belarus's fast-track admission to the organization and the Belarusian initiatives for the SCO at the Independence Palace in Minsk.

Belarus has been a dialogue partner of the SCO since 2010. It acquired formal observer status in the organization in 2015. The decision to begin Belarus's accession to the SCO was made at a meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in September 2022.

The SCO consists of Russia, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The observer states are Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia. It was reported on January 25, 2023, that Iran had finalized legal formalities to become an SCO member.