Chinese President Xi Jinping says that Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) can play a constructive role to help Afghans in their quest to restore peace and stability in the country, as leaders from the SCO member nations gathered in the Uzbek capital Tashkent for a two day summit.
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One of the main topics discussed in the summit was Iran’s accession to the SCO, but the organization kept Iran at arm’s length despite a request from Russian Federation which backs Tehran’s bid.
It now has six member countries: China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office in a statement said, “Pakistan has been an observer at SCO since 2005”. As last year’s Ufa summit initiated the process to take in new members for the first time in the SCO history, the global influence of the organization has kept increasing with the organization’s full members and observers accounting for almost half of the world’s population. The Heads of State Council had agreed to launch the procedure of accepting Pakistan as a member state of SCO with the consensus of all the founding members.
India’s membership of SCO would contribute to region’s prosperity and strengthen its security, Modi stated. Iran, Afghanistan, India and Mongolia have observer status.
The annual summit, hosted by Uzbek President Islam Karimov, was also attended by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon.
President Mamnoon in a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, held here on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), termed the recent events at Torkham as unfortunate and also “against the spirit of good neighbourly relations and friendly cooperation”.
Putin told Chinese state news agency Xinhua ahead of the summit that the accession of India and Pakistan would increase the organization’s “relevance, both in the region and worldwide”.
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According to him, there would be economic as well as military benefits after joining the prestigious forum.
