Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived Thursday in Samarkand, where, for the first time in three years, he will personally attend a meeting of the the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Heads of State Council on September 15-16.
On Thursday, Putin is scheduled to meet with foreign leaders in bilateral and multilateral formats and will talk with Presidents Sadyr Zhaparov of Kyrgyzstan, Serdar Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan, Ebrahim Raisi of Iran, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif of Pakistan and President Xi Jinping of China. In addition, a trilateral Russia-Mongolia-China summit with the participation of the heads of state will be held on September 15.
On Friday, the Russian leader will take part in the meeting of the SCO Heads of State Council in narrow and extended formats. Putin is expected to detail his vision of the organization's tasks and propose some measures to improve its performance.
On September 16, the Russian president will also have bilateral meetings with the leader of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.
At the end of all the events, Putin is scheduled to talk to representatives of the Russian media.
Currently, founded in 2001, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization consists of India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The observer countries are Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia; the partner countries are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey and Sri Lanka. It is expected that the Samarkand summit will complete the procedure of admission of Iran to the organization, and also Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia will be granted the status of a dialogue partner. In addition, Belarus is considering an application to join the SCO as a full-fledged member.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS