Sergey Saenko, political observer

All eight leaders of the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO or the Organization) confirmed their participation in the Organization’s summit, which will be held on September 15-16 in the Uzbek city of Samarkand. True, some leaders have not yet decided on the format, the acting director told reporters. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan Vladimir Norov – a country that in 2022 is the current chairman of the SCO.

“To date, all the leaders of the SCO member states have confirmed their participation in the summit. But some of them have not yet decided on the format of participation. This will depend on the epidemiological situation during the SCO summit. But we proceed from the fact that the meeting of leaders will take place in person. We are working hard on this,” Norov said. He added that the leaders of the SCO observer countries and heads of partner organizations – the UN, the CIS, the CSTO, the EAEU and others, are also expected to attend the summit.

This information was confirmed to journalists by the Secretary General of the Organization Zhang Ming. By the way, answering the question whether Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the meeting in person, he stressed that everything will depend on the epidemiological situation. “As for the format, all parties hope that they will be able to return to the traditional, more efficient format of work,” the SCO Secretary General said.

Recall that the SCO is a permanent regional international association, the establishment of which was announced on June 15, 2001 in Shanghai. At the moment, Russia, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are full members of the Organization, and Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia have the status of observer countries. In addition, the status of partner countries was assigned to Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey and Sri Lanka.

In mid-July of this year, an application for admission to the SCO was submitted by Belarus, which since 2010 has had observer status with the Organization. Official Minsk hopes that his request will be considered in an expedited manner. Apparently, it will. It is no coincidence that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters: “There is a consensus on Belarus to begin its accession (to the SCO – ed.) as a full member.” Indeed, according to Vladimir Norov, Minsk’s appeal has already been sent to the SCO member countries, and the procedure for admitting Belarus to the SCO membership may begin at the summit in Samarkand. Later, the Secretary General of the Organization, Zhang Ming, confirmed that the association was ready to begin the necessary legal procedures for the admission of Belarus to full members.

It should be noted here that at the previous SCO summit in Dushanbe in September 2021, the procedure for admitting Iran as a full member of the Organization and granting the status of a dialogue partner to Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia was launched. In this regard, it is not at all surprising that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is expected to attend the meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO in Samarkand.

It should be noted that Iran’s path to becoming a full member of the SCO was very long. Thus, Tehran, which has had observer status in the Organization since 2005, applied for full membership back in 2008, but then it could not be admitted to the SCO due to international sanctions in force against it. According to the rules of the Organization, a country under the sanctions of the UN Security Council cannot become a member, and a number of restrictive measures were applied against Iran. The UN Security Council sanctions were lifted in 2015 when Tehran agreed to limit its nuclear program. But even this did not open the door to the SCO for him – the Iranian application was blocked by Tajikistan, with which Iran had a conflict. It was only possible to resolve it in 2021, after which Tehran’s application was finally given the green light. And it must be assumed that already in Samarkand Iran will become a full member of the Organization.

Obviously  the process of granting the status of SCO dialogue partner to Bahrain and the Maldives will be launched in Samarkand. In turn, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia and Nepal claim the status of an observer at the Organization (it is higher than the status of a dialogue partner).

It should be noted that under President Viktor Yanukovych (2010-2014), Ukraine was also actively interested in the status of an observer to the SCO, hoping, among other things, to attract new investments in this way and increase its role as a transit state. However, today no one even remembers this fact – neither in Kyiv, nor in the ranks of the Organization itself.

Perhaps, it should be noted that the foreign ministers of the SCO countries at their recent meeting in Tashkent (July 28-29) also preferred (at least in the open part of the meeting) not to develop the topic of the Russian special military operation to protect the population of Donbass. Thus, Vladimir Norov said in general terms that “the era of a fundamental turning point in international relations and global restructuring” is coming, accompanied by “increasing factors of instability and economic uncertainty.” And Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi said that the SCO “is entering its third decade against the backdrop of very complex global processes.” And the crisis situation around Ukraine once again confirms that this is indeed the case.

It should be emphasized that the main contours of the upcoming SCO summit in Samarkand were outlined at the above-mentioned meeting of the heads of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs (FMs) of the member countries of the Organization in Tashkent. The event was attended by the heads of foreign affairs departments of all eight SCO member states, as well as the Secretary General of the Organization Zhang Ming and the director of the Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) of the SCO Ruslan Mirzaev. Russia was represented at a meeting of the Ministerial Council in the capital of Uzbekistan by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. As a matter of fact, the preparation for the summit in Samarkand was the main topic of the agenda of the meeting in Tashkent.

Its participants stated that at the summit in Samarkand it is planned to consider the state and prospects for further development of multilateral cooperation, to determine priorities and practical measures to increase the activities of the Organization at the present stage. At the same time, special attention will be paid to enhancing the role of the SCO in world affairs in the light of the geopolitical realities that are emerging today. Based on this, at the Ministerial Council meeting in Tashkent, the ministers reviewed the progress in the development of the SCO CHS documents, the adoption and subsequent implementation of which will give a qualitatively new impetus to interaction in the areas of politics, security, economics and humanitarian ties. Based on the results of the Organization’s summit, it is planned to adopt the Samarkand Declaration, which will fix the common positions of the SCO member states.

It is important to note that the Council of Foreign Ministers approved a solid package of documents for the forthcoming summit of the Organization in September. Among them are the drafts of the Comprehensive Plan for the Implementation of the Treaty on Long-term Good Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation, the Concept of Cooperation on the Development of Interconnection and the Creation of Efficient Transport Corridors, the Program for Stimulating Industrial Cooperation between Business Circles, the Provisions on the honorary title “Goodwill Ambassador of the SCO ” and others.

Evidently the upcoming SCO summit in Samarkand will be rich in content and, presumably, its results will become important steps for the further development of the Organization.