MOSCOW, September 9/ Sputnik Radio. Iran may join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the beginning of the procedure for including the country in the organization will be announced at the upcoming SCO summit, the Kommersant newspaper reports.
The meeting of the leaders of the participating countries of the organization (Russia, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) will be held in Dushanbe on September 16-17.
The newspaper adds that the very accession of Tehran to the SCO may take some more time. Kommersant recalled that it took almost two years for Delhi and Islamabad to do this.
Russian Ambassador to Iran Levan Dzhagaryan told RIA Novosti that Moscow supports Tehran's application for membership in the SCO, as Russia and Iran have "close, and on a number of international and regional issues, the same positions".
A political scientist shared his opinion on what the possible accession of the Islamic Republic to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization could mean on Sputnik radioIgor Shatrov:
Iran applied to join the organization in 2008, but there was uncertainty about its accession to the SCO. The reason for the long consideration of the application was the nuclear program of Tehran and the international sanctions that followed in response to it.
Since the spring of this year, six rounds of negotiations have been held in Vienna between the parties to the Iranian nuclear deal, but the agreement has not yet been restored.
On August 5, Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi said that Tehran would agree to any diplomatic plans if they lead to the lifting of US sanctions.
The State Department said that they are ready to comply with the terms of the agreement, from which they previously withdrew, and called on Iran to do the same.
Earlier, Sputnik radio told about Moscow's position on the issue of the deployment of the US military in the countries of Central Asia.
