Pakistan, India, Iran and Mongolia will get SCO membership by July 10
Ufa, Russia: Pakistan, India, Iran and Mongolia will get Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) membership on July 10 while the decision about Afghanistan will arrive after deliberation in the SCO summit scheduled to be held in Ufa Russia during July 8-10.
English language will be included in the list of official languages of SCO as Russian and Chinese are two official languages of the group. SCO cooperation covers wide-ranging areas such as security, the economy, transportation, culture, disaster relief and law enforcement, with security and economic cooperation being the priorities.
According to diplomatic sources, China and Russia have formally approved expansion of the organization after getting consent of other members.
According to details, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Ufa will mark historic expansion of the organization as the first time the grouping is being expanded since it was set up in 2001. Pakistan, India, Iran, Afghanistan and Mongolia are having the status of observers in SCO.
The SCO include China, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan while India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Mongolia are observers.
Background and work of SCO:
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an intergovernmental international organization founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001 by six countries – China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its member states cover an area of over 30 million sq. km, or about three fifths of Eurasia, with a population of 1.455 billion, about a quarter of the world’s total. Its working languages are Chinese and Russian.
SCO security cooperation focuses on the fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism. On June 15, 2001, the Shanghai Convention Against Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism was signed, clearly defining terrorism, separatism and extremism.
Economic cooperation is a key area of cooperation for the SCO and serves as the material foundation and guarantee for SCO’s smooth development. Heads of government of the six member states held the first meeting in Alma-Ata on 14 September 2001 to discuss regional economic cooperation and signed the Memorandum between the Governments of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on the Basic Objectives and Orientation of Regional Economic Cooperation and the Launching of a Process of Trade and Investment Facilitation. The year 2002 saw the establishment of mechanisms for economic and trade as well as transportation ministerial meetings successively as initial attempts to explore avenues of substantive cooperation in trade, investment, transportation, energy and other areas. The SCO heads of government met in Beijing for a second time on 23 September 2003 and adopted a plan for multilateral economic and trade cooperation of the SCO member states, in which priority areas, main tasks and implementation mechanism of economic-trade cooperation between the six SCO member states were identified.
