Iran’s request to become a full member of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was approved after 15 years. In this way, Iran will become the ninth main member of this organization.
Iran was an observer member until this approval, and its previous application for permanent membership had been rejected.
In recent months, Russia, a key member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, had backed Iran’s membership.
In a tweet, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian described the membership as a “strategic movement” and added that “it would have a significant impact on Iran’s comprehensive co-operation in the field of neighborhood and Asia-based politics.”
Ibrahim Raisi thanked other members for accepting Iran as a key member at the summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
This is Mr. Raisi’s first foreign trip since his presidency. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he should remain in quarantine and attend the summit online, with Chinese and Indian leaders attending the summit via video.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, although described as China’s expansionist arm, is currently one of the most important international institutions in which there is no mention of the “West” and may challenge the West’s complete domination of international politics.
Now, as much as Iran’s non-admission to the organization for 13 years has had a negative impact on Tehran’s position and credibility, its membership will be a diplomatic victory; The symbolic fruit of the “look to the east” foreign policy, which has been implemented for many years at the insistence of Ayatollah Khamenei.
Thus, the “neither East nor West” foreign policy, which is also mentioned in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, becomes less important than ever, and Iran actively defines itself as part of a converging political-economic-security bloc that some believe it has a great chance in the future of of the balance of international.
This diplomatic success has also been achieved at a special time. The fate of the JCPOA revival talks is unclear, and Iran accuses the United States of excessive greed. US sanctions continue to harass Iran and despite Iran’s stubbornness in the negotiations, not only is there no sign of further isolation of Tehran, but even Iran has succeeded in reducing the old isolation.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was established in 2001 to combat extremist Islamism and other security concerns in China, Russia and four other countries of the former Soviet Union.
Russia, China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, India and Pakistan have been key members, and Afghanistan, Iran, Belarus and Mongolia have been observer members, and now Iran is a full member.
Iran has been striving for more than a decade to be recognized as a permanent member of this organization. Hassan Rouhani’s first foreign trip as President was in 2013 to attend the Shanghai Summit, but the obstacles to Iran’s membership from the perspective of this organization have not been removed so far.
But in the past few months, it has been predicted that this time Iran’s membership will be approved membership.
Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, recently said that political obstacles to Iran’s membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization had been removed and that Iran’s membership will be finalized after technical formalities.
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