The 21st Summit Meeting of SCO will be held in Tajikistan’s capital city Dushanbe as the host on Thursday and Friday, August 25 and 26 and President Raisi’s presence in it is his first foreign trip as president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), whose 20th Summit Meeting is scheduled for Thursday in Tajikistan, is an intergovernmental organization which was established in the year 2001 by the leaders of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, aimed at creating balance against the US and NATO hegemony.
Currently the SCO has eight main members, China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, India and Pakistan, while the Islamic Republic of Iran by the side of Mongolia, Belarus and Afghanistan are the observer members of that organization. Iran’s observer status at the SCO was gained in the year 2005.
Meanwhile, the SCO has some dialogue partners, including the Azerbaijan Republic, Armenia Republic, Kingdom of Cambodia, the Democratic Federal Republic of Nepal, Republic of Turkey, and the Socialist Democratic of Sri Lanka.
The main objective of the SCO is strengthening mutual and neighborhood respect among member countries, improving their effective political, commercial, economic research and cultural cooperation, and also in such fields as training, energy, transportation, tourism, environment protection.
President Raisi had earlier in his inauguration ceremony at the Iranian Parliament said that the world is going through major evolutions, emphasizing that in order to secure the nations’ interests it is necessary to understand the conditions of the new world order and to establish strategic interactions with newly emerging powers in a successful, balanced foreign policy.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian had said in his first meeting with the foreign ambassadors in Tehran: The title of the new Iranian foreign policy of the new Iranian government is a balanced, dynamic and intelligent foreign policy.
Today at the end of the 2nd decade of the SCO, the international developments are subject to drastic changes and the approaches based on multilateralism of the 20th century are subjected to negative reactions of many countries, and such reactions are for instance reflected in such moves as the establishment of the SCO.
The foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran towards such regional foundations as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has been strengthening them and cooperation with them in the framework of Iran’s balanced foreign policy.
President Raisi’s tomorrow arrival in Dushanbe, Tajikistan to attend the 21st Summit Meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization can be regarded as a beginning for Iran’s multilateral and balanced foreign policy in Eurasia and East Asia.
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