WASHINGTON, July 5. /TASS/. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is now embracing the majority of major non-Western players, a US expert, who asked not to be named, told TASS, commenting on the SCO summit in Kazakhstan.
"The SCO summit in Astana is an expression not of an anti-Western bloc, but of a large and resilient neutral bloc that encompasses most major players in the non-Western world," he said.
"Whilst global attention at the SCO event is focused on the Russia-China relationship and Belarus’ accession, the Astana summit reveals another crucial trend with which Western policymakers have yet to grapple: despite Western officials’ early insistence that non-Western countries must pick a side on the Ukraine issue, the Central Asian states have successfully adopted a kind of neutrality that has allowed them to maintain friendly commercial and political relations with Russia without incurring significant consequences from Western governments," the expert noted.
The SCO summit was held in Astana on July 4. The summit admitted Belarus as a full-fledged member of the organization, which now units ten member countries. More than ten more countries are dialogue partners. Their representatives took part in the SCO+ format meeting.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was set up in June 2001 by Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan joined the SCO in 2017, and Iran - in 2023.