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SCO leaders to consider issue on India, Pakistan commitments at summit next month

On May 23, the respective protocols were signed in Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent after consultations with the representatives of India and Pakistan

© AP Photo/Channi Anand

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Russia FM to raise issue of Iran joining Shanghai Cooperation Organization

TASHKENT, May 24. /TASS/. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) foreign ministers will put up for consideration by the leaders of the member-states an issue of signing a memorandum on granting membership to India and Pakistan, Uzbekistan’s Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov said after a meeting of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers on Tuesday.

On May 23, the respective protocols were signed in Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent after consultations with the representatives of India and Pakistan, he said. "A decision was made to submit for consideration of heads of SCO member-states an issue on signing at the upcoming summit in Tashkent a memorandum on commitments of India and Pakistan with the goal of acquisition by them a status of SCO member-states," Kamilov said.

The SCO summit will be held in Tashkent on June 23-24.

At the meeting, the SCO foreign ministers discussed the issues of increasing the role of the organization in international affairs and confirmed a joint stance ruling out a confrontational approach in solving global problems."The participants welcomed the signing of a memorandum on granting a status of the SCO dialogue partner to Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia and Nepal," Uzbekistan’s foreign minister said.

He stressed that priority tasks of cooperation in the SCO will be to "carry out efforts on combating terrorism, separatism and extremism jointly and also countering illegal drug trafficking."

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a permanent regional international association founded in 2001 in Shanghai. The organization brings together Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

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