ASTANA, May 21. /TASS/. The obvious next candidate for joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is Mongolia, all members of the organization support its accession, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters following a meeting of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers.
"We believe, together with the People's Republic of China and our other partners, that the obvious next candidate for joining the SCO is the Mongolian side. If you look at the map, it fits organically into the SCO space, and we will encourage our Mongolian neighbors to make such a decision. All SCO members are unequivocally in favor of it," he said.
The Russian top diplomat recalled that for the moment 14 countries have the status of dialogue partners within SCO.
"We have also received applications for this status from Laos and Algeria. <...> So, the process is underway, and as our relations with these states develop, <...> having passed the status of dialogue partner, observer, they can apply for membership," Lavrov added.
"I personally think <...> that this is a somewhat cumbersome pattern. So, as part of the work to upgrade the SCO, upgrade its rules and norms, we will pay attention to the need to somehow straighten this distance. I hope we will receive support," the Russian Foreign Minister concluded.
The declaration on the establishment of the SCO was signed in Shanghai in June 2001 by six states - Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Currently, the organization also includes India and Pakistan. Observer states are Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia.