NEW DELHI (Dispatches) -- Iran’s defense minister on Friday warned about growing attempts by the West and NATO to create a unipolar world, saying the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) should help promote multilateralism.
Brigadier General Muhammad Reza Ashtiani told a meeting of SCO defense ministers here that proxy wars and terrorism have become a tool for some major powers to maintain their superiority.
Ashtiani said, “Since its establishment, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has followed an intelligent, influential and role-playing pat and become an instrumental institution in global trends and a guarantor of peace and stability and respect for the rights of nations.”
“Global geostrategic rivalries with military and security approaches are intensifying. Regional competitions in different regions of the world are exacerbating under the influence of aggressive and divisive policies of some big powers,” Ashtiani said.
“The expansionist and hegemonic policies of the West and NATO and the effort to revive the unipolar and hierarchical world have accelerated.”
The Iranian minister said the foundations of the arms control system, non-proliferation and international treaties are under serious threat.
The SCO, he said, enjoys diverse and extensive social, cultural, economic and security capacities that are influential in its global and regional roles and functions.
Ashtiani said SCO member states share a responsibility to design a new world order.
“We need a common understanding in the Shanghai Organization to resolve different security challenges in the world.”
The minister said Iran’s defense doctrine heralds a message of peace and friendship for the region and the world.
Elsewhere in his speech, Ashtiani touched on global terrorism and the dual policies in fighting the heinous phenomenon.
“Terrorism, in its various forms, is spread by different factors such as extremism, discrimination and injustice, ignorance and backwardness, interests and interference of some powers,” he said.
“The biggest problem in the world community to overcome this phenomenon is the use of double standards,” he said.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is both a victim of terrorism and a leader in the fight against terrorism, and in this way, it has sacrificed distinguished martyrs and great heroes.”
The SCO was founded by China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan in 2001, and currently forms the world’s biggest regional market with eight official and four observer members.
The organization accounts for 40 percent of the world’s population and 28 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP).