President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will take part in a meeting of the Council of Heads of States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Samarkand. Leaders of 15 countries will arrive in Uzbekistan, eight of which are the full SCO members, and the rest are heads of observer countries and invited participants. During the summit, important decisions are expected to be made on the development of the SCO’s activities, as well as on expansion of its membership. In particular, at the previous meeting of the Council held in Dushanbe, it was decided to start the procedure of admitting Iran as a full member state. It is planned to be relaunched at the joint meeting. At present, the Islamic Republic is still an observer member. It bears noting that Belarus will also be able to become a full-fledged SCO member.
“Many countries have expressed interest and desire to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It doesn't matter what status they would have. At this point, we are always ready to welcome this desire,” SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming said.
The impact of sanctions on the member states, as well as security issues are expected to be the main topics of discussion at the Summit.
“Amidst the current global situation, we will have to confront external and internal threats. The external ones are international geopolitical changes, including supply chain disruptions affecting food, energy and information security, as well as climate change,” SCO chief added.
International experts have already commented that the Samarkand Summit would open up a new page in the countries’ synergy and would give a new impetus to the development of mutually beneficial relations between the SCO member states.
