Moscow will make every effort to ensure India gets full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at the upcoming SCO summit in Russia’s southern city of Ufa, Sergey Naryshkin, Chairman of the Russian State Duma said following a meeting with the heads of both chambers of the Indian Parliament in New Delhi last week, Indian newspaper The Hindu reported.
“India is playing an active role in the SCO, but as an observer. Russia will take all the necessary steps to secure a positive decision on India’s application for full membership at the Ufa summit,” Naryshkin said.
The SCO, is a Eurasian political, economic and military alliance which was founded in 2001 and currently comprises of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
India, Mongolia, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, currently hold observer status with the SCO.
In February, the Russian Ambassador to China, Andrey Denisov, said that the accession process of India, Pakistan, and Iran to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could start this year.
Last Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that the matter of India and Pakistan’s accession to the SCO would be high on the agenda at the summit of SCO and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) which is set to take place in Ufa – the capital city of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia – on July 8-10, 2015.
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