Syria, Egypt and Israel willing to join the SCO activities
Almaty. June 24. Silkroadnews – According to the Russian president’s special envoy for the SCO affairs Bakhtiyer Khakimov, Syria, Israel and Egypt are among the countries willing to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
“Syria, Israel and Egypt are among the countries willing to join the activity of the SCO in one status or another. Israel was the most recent country applied for the status of dialogue partner, Egypt, too, requested dialogue partner status. We will gradually settle all these issues,” TASS quoted B. Khakimov saying at the briefing on Thursday.
He noted, these countries officially requested observer status, yet the point in case is about providing a dialogue partner status within the organization.
B. Khakimov also reminded in 2015 Afghanistan applied for the SCO membership. Besides, in his words, Bangladesh applied for the membership in the organization.
“We explained one shall start small as within the SCO there is an understanding that we will not fall into expansion of membership or membership in observer status, and that the applicant state should gradually go the way from the dialogue partner to the observer status and so on. Then it may request a membership,” B. Khakimov commented.
He also said the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) have not yet agreed on terms of joining for Iran, however, there are no principal barriers to that.
At last year’s summit in Ufa, he said, candidacy of Iran that submitted an application back in 2008, was not considered, as that time the country was still under the UN sanctions. At present these barriers are removed and Russia “clearly speaks for starting the process of Iran’s admission into the SCO without delay”.
“This time we have not agreed with the colleagues, yet the work goes on,” said B. Khakimov, having added “there are no objections in principle, there are technical nuances – when to start this process.”
