TEHRAN -- Iran’s foreign minister says President Ebrahim Raisi’s scheduled visit to Uzbekistan to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)’s summit will be a turning point in bilateral relations.
In a phone call with Uzbekistan’s Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov, Hussein Amir-Abdollahian said Iran is ready to contribute to a successful summit that will be held in Samarkand on September 15-16.
The top Iranian diplomat conveyed President Raisi’s warm greetings to Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
For his part, Norov expressed satisfaction with the Iranian president’s plan to attend the summit, which, he said, will host 14 heads of state.
The Uzbek foreign minister said the significance of Iran’s membership and its capacities will be on the summit’s agenda.
At its 21st summit in Dushanbe in September 2021, the SCO approved documents for Iran’s full membership in the Eurasian political, economic, and security alliance.
Iran’s accession to the full SCO membership will be finalized by April 2023, after signing the country’s first memorandum of obligations at the Samarkand summit.
China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, India, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan are its current full members. Iran, Afghanistan, Belarus, and Mongolia are observer states.
The SCO accounts for 40 percent of the world’s population and 28 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP).