TEHRAN —
Iran intends to pursue membership
of a Chinese and Russian-led bloc that is meeting in Uzbekistan this week,
President Ebrahim Raisi said Wednesday as he prepared to head to the summit.
اضافة اعلان
The
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) — made
up of China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and four ex-Soviet Central Asian
countries — was set up in 2001 as a political, economic and security
organization to rival Western institutions.
The summit set for Thursday and Friday in the Uzbek
city of Samarkand is the first entirely face-to-face leaders’ meeting since the
start of the coronavirus pandemic.
“One of the important acts of this summit will be
the finalization of SCO (membership) documents and the legal process they will
need to take in order to be signed by the foreign ministers of the member
countries,” Raisi said.
Iran, one of four SCO observer states, had applied
for full membership in 2008 but its bid was slowed by UN and US sanctions
imposed over its nuclear program.
Several SCO members did not want a country under
international sanctions in their ranks.
At a conference in Dushanbe in September last year,
members of the bloc endorsed Iran’s future membership.
Tehran wants to “make the most of the economic power
and the capacities of the region ... for the benefit of (Iran)”, Raisi said.
The Kremlin said Tuesday that this week’s summit in
Samarkand will showcase an “alternative” to the West.
The move comes as Iran and major powers have been
struggling to revive a 2015 nuclear deal.
The original agreement promised Iran relief from
crippling sanctions in return for tight limits to its nuclear activities
verified by UN monitors.
Since last year, Iran has been engaged in
EU-brokered talks to revive the deal with the renewed involvement of the US,
which pulled out in 2018.
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