Iran to join Shanghai alliance with China and Russia next week: Lavrov

Subject: International Relations

Section: Groupings

Concept:

Iran is expected to be approved as a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in the second week of July 2023.
The SCO is a regional intergovernmental organisation focused on regional security issues, regional terrorism, ethnic separatism and religious extremism.
The SCO has eight member states: China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Four observer states—Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia—are interested in acceding to full membership, and six dialogue partners—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey—are also involved with the organization.
India and Pakistan joined the SCO in 2017.
Iran has been an observer state of the SCO since 2005, and Belarus has been an observer state since 2015.

SCO –

The SCO is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation. It is a Eurasian political, economic, and security alliance and has been the primary security pillar of the region.
It was established in 2001. It was preceded by the Shanghai Five mechanism.
The Heads of State Council (HSC) is the supreme decision-making body in the SCO. It meets once a year and adopts decisions and guidelines on all important matters of the organisation.
The organisation has two permanent bodies:
- the SCO Secretariat based in Beijing.
- the Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) based in Tashkent.
Eight member states: India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Four observer states: Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia.