Iran Should Be Granted Full SCO Membership — Russian MP

[link to www.mosnews.com]

The deputy speaker of the Russian parliament Wednesday proposed that Iran be granted full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, RIA Novosti news agency reports. “Iran wants to become a permanent member [of the regional security organization] and we must assist it, in order to enhance the SCO and protect Iran,” said Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who also heads the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR).

Iran, which currently holds observer status in the organization along with Pakistan, India and Mongolia, has already received an official invitation from China, the organization’s president this year, to attend the SCO summit planned for June 15.

Gholam Hossein Elham, an Iranian government spokesman, said Monday that Iran was seeking broader cooperation with all six members of the organization — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Russia and China — in economy, politics and culture, as well as in international affairs.

Senior officials from SCO member-states deny the possibility of Iran’s admission. Tajik Foreign Minister Talbak Nazarov said that “Iran’s membership in the association is not under consideration”.

“There is a group of countries that would like to join the organization,” Nazarov added. “This has not yet been discussed, because the organization cannot admit an unlimited number of new members and there is no document that could regulate the participation of a non-member country, including Iran.”

Meanwhile, Russian experts consider Iran’s admission to the SCO beneficial for the region and the international community at large. “Iranian participation in the work of the SCO as an observer and, probably, a member in the future would be one of the carrots that could be used by the international community to make deals with Iran, because, until now, we have seen only the stick” Sergei Karaganov, head of the Russian Foreign and Defense Policy Council told Interfax news agency on Tuesday.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an intergovernmental international organization founded in Shanghai on 15 June 2001 by six countries: China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India, Pakistan, and Iran joined the organization as observers in 2005, following Mongolia’s accession, also as an observer, the previous year.