President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree which approves a memorandum on Iran's obligations for obtaining the status of a member state in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The document was published on the website of the national legislative database Lex.uz.
"[To] approve a memorandum on the obligations of the Islamic Republic of Iran to obtain the status of a member state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization," the decree reads. It informs that the foreign ministry of the republic was instructed to send to the secretariat of the SCO a notice of the implementation of Uzbekistan's domestic procedures required for the entry into force of this memorandum.
In September 2022, during the SCO summit in Samarkand, Iran signed a memorandum on its obligations to obtain the status of an SCO member state. Then in November 2022 and January 2023, the parliament of the country passed a bill on Iran's accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and a bill on the memorandum of Iran's obligations as an SCO member state. Now according to the SCO procedures the memorandum must be approved by the member countries of the organization.
The members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that was created in 2001, include India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia have observer status, and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey and Sri Lanka are partner countries. In 2021, the SCO summit in Dushanbe initiated the procedure for Iran's admission to the organization and the granting of dialogue partner status to Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: sco-russia2020.ru/Creative Commons 4.0
Based on materials from TASS