SCO may take decision on India, Pakistan membership in 2015
MOSCOW, September 10. /ITAR-TASS/. Package of about ten documents that will be signed at the end of a summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, September 11-12 will include a document on the prospects for giving full-fledged membership of the organization to India and Pakistan, a high-rank Kremlin aide said Wednesday.
“By Wednesday morning, a package of ten final documents had been coordinated,” said Yuri Ushakov, the Russian President’s aide.
The package includes the papers regulating adoption of new members. “This means a real prospect is opening for well-specified decisions on granting membership to a number of countries - primarily to India and Pakistan - and on their practical inclusion in our organization’s work,” Ushakov said.
He recalled applications for full membership had been filed by India, Pakistan and Iran but the issue of Iran’s membership would obviously be put off in the wake of UN sanctions still in effect against that country.
Among other documents to be signed in Dushanbe, Ushakov singled out the final declaration, a decision to draft of project of the SCO strategy development through to 2025 and a resolution on celebrations time for VE-Day in 2015.
“SCO leaders are going to have a number of state functions in Moscow in May 2015, including celebrations of VE-Day where a number of heads of state and government have already been invited and quite naturally, leaders of SCO countries,” he said.
The Dushanbe summit will begin with a narrow-format meeting where the presidents will look at the problems of collaboration in security, improvements in the organization’s activity and the general state of things in the region and in the world at large.
They will then be joined by their delegations in full force and by the heads of delegations of observer-nations - Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan.
Presidents of Turkmenistan and the heads of several international organizations have been invited to the summit as guests.
Russia will take over the rotating presidency of the SCO at the end of the summit.
Yuri Ushakov also said Putin was going to hold a range of bilateral meetings in Dushanbe September 11 and September 12. Specifically, he will meet with his opposite numbers from Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Iran.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization includes Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.
Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan have the status of observers while Belarus, Turkey and Sri Lanka have the status of dialogue partners.