SCO may get two new permanent members, Iran and Belarus considers joining

India is hosting SCO in Goa this year and is ready welcome all SCO member counties

An official said on Thursday that the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) observer countries, Iran, and Belarus, could soon become full-time members of the organisation, as the matter is now being considered. Previously, India had invited the two countries to attend the SCO Defence Ministers' meeting, which was held in Delhi on April 27-28.

Belarus' Minister of Defence, Major General Viktor Khrenin, and Iranian Defence Minister Mohammad Reza Gharaei Ashtiani attended the meeting in the national capital, which was presided over by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

This year, India is hosting the SCO, and Goa is ready to welcome all SCO member countries' foreign ministers to the venue where decisions on new SCO members will be taken.

"The most important task ahead of the SCO Foreign Ministers will be to assess the status of decisions to be approved at the SCO Summit in New Delhi in July." "The meeting will also provide an opportunity to discuss the state of multilateral cooperation in the SCO, regional and global issues of interest, the Organization's reform and modernization, and the progress of admitting Iran and Belarus to the SCO as new Member States," MEA Secretary Dammu Ravi said in Goa.

He went on to say that India's efforts to deepen friendship and collaboration in the SCO were visible via different socio-cultural events organised.

Russia, India, China, Pakistan, and four Central Asian countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan – are currently members of the SCO. If the SCO members agree to admit Iran and Belarus as new members, the SCO will have ten members by next year.

The theme of the 2023 Indian SCO Chair is 'Secure-SCO'. India attaches particular importance to the SCO in promoting multilateral, political, security, economic and people-to-people exchanges in the region. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an intergovernmental organization established in 2001. 

 The final meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. India will assume the SCO's rotating presidency at her SCO summit in Samarkand  in 2022.