10 Mar 2023 14:56

Belarusian, Iranian accession to SCO 'progressing successfully' - SCO secretary-general

MINSK. March 10 (Interfax) - Belarusian accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has been "progressing successfully," while Iran has been doing everything to "advance this process," SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming said.

"I have completed a visit to Iran and has arrived in Belarus. Both countries have been functioning as observers to our organization for years. Through all these years, they have been taking active part in every event associated with the SCO activity. They filed for full membership in the organization in the past. The heads of SCO member states actively responded to those applications," the Belarusian state-run news agency BelTA quoted Zhang as telling journalists while visiting the Great Stone Chinese-Belarusian industrial park on Friday.

"Now both countries, all member states and the SCO Secretariat are doing everything they can and are closely cooperating in the promotion of this process. This includes, for instance, formalization of certain procedures inside the organization and in those countries. On the whole, everything is successfully developing at the moment," Zhang said.

Belarusian President said at a meeting with Zhang in Minsk on Thursday that Belarus was planning to enter into the SCO in the first half of this year, before the SCO summit in New Delhi.

Belarus has been a dialogue partner since 2010 and an official observer to the SCO since 2015. A decision to begin Belarusian 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.