BEIJING, March 6. /TASS/. The member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) do not always act as a united front in the international arena, but the key point is that they do not oppose each other, Russian Ambassador at Large, Special Presidential Envoy for SCO affairs Bakhtiyer Khakimov told Russian reporters on Monday following his visit to Beijing.
"The SCO does not always act as a united front, but the main thing is that member states do not oppose each other," he stressed. "I won't get into details now, but if you look at the results of voting on individual [UN] General Assembly resolutions, there doesn't have to be a hundred percent coincidence, but the key point is that on the most sensitive topics we do not oppose each other. We may not have supported each other, but we did not oppose each other," he explained.
"The SCO is a living organism. This is natural, because the states that created it are developing, they have their own foreign policy, economy and national objectives. But each state, while pursuing its own goals, seeks to use all available opportunities, and one of the directions is to work in multilateral and bilateral formats," Khakimov said.
He added that the SCO "has come a long way and its common asset today is the spirit of mutual understanding, mutual trust and support," what is commonly called the "Shanghai spirit."
"This all creates prerequisites that, taken together, make it possible to strengthen the organization's role and move forward," the diplomat concluded.
About organization
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was established in 2001 by six states: Russia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, and Uzbekistan. Later, in 2017, Pakistan and India joined the club. Four other countries - Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia - hold observer status, while several other nations - Azerbaijan, Armenia, Egypt, Cambodia, Qatar, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Sri Lanka - are dialogue partners.
At last year's SCO summit in Samarkand on September 15 to 16, the leaders of the organization signed a memorandum on the obligations of the Iranian side in connection with its accession to the SCO. Also during the summit the process of registration of Belarus’ membership in the organization began.
In addition, it was decided in Samarkand to start the procedure of granting the status of dialogue partners to Bahrain, Kuwait, Maldives, Myanmar and the United Arab Emirates.