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AFP – The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), where Russia and China play a major role, is set to deny membership to Iran at a meeting Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.<\/p>\nAFP – The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), where Russia and China play a major role, is set to deny membership to Iran at a meeting Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.<\/p>\n
The SCO is expected to vote Friday on a blueprint for expanding cooperation that will not allow countries under UN sanctions to obtain membership, Lavrov said late Thursday in Tashkent.<\/p>\n
"Tomorrow (Friday) a provision will be approved," Lavrov told reporters, when asked to confirm that under soon-to-be-adopted rules, a nation seeking SCO membership could not be under UN sanctions.<\/p>\n
"Among membership criteria will be the one you've mentioned," Lavrov said, without referring to Iran directly.<\/p>\n
Despite close economic and energy ties with the Islamic republic, Russia and China, two of the five UN Security Council veto-wielding permanent members, this week supported a new round of UN sanctions against Iran.<\/p>\n
The Islamic republic, which has observer status in the SCO, has expressed interest in full membership of the regional security group.<\/p>\n
Russia's Kommersant newspaper reported this week that Russia and China had insisted on the new provision regarding UN sanctions so as not to jeopardize their ties with the West.<\/p>\n
The report, citing diplomatic sources in several SCO member countries, also said Iran's besieged leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted an invitation to the Friday gathering.<\/p>\n
Ahmadinejad is keen to secure support of his allies in the face of intensifying international pressure.<\/p>\n
But Russia, China and Kazakhstan, the current chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), had decided to "politely deny" it, the report said.<\/p>\n
By contrast, Ahmadinejad was warmly greeted at the SCO annual summit in Russia last June, which he chose for his first foreign trip since his disputed re-election victory last year.<\/p>\n
Russian senior officials have denied Moscow had asked the Iranian leader to stay away this time.<\/p>\n
"He himself decided not to come," Lavrov told reporters.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, the Kremlin's top foreign policy adviser Sergei Prikhodko expressed a similar sentiment, saying the Iranian leader chose not to come.<\/p>\n
The SCO was set up in 2001 as a security counterweight to NATO that would allow Russia and China to rival US influence in Asia.<\/p>\n
Increasingly, it is also looking to cooperate at an economic level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AFP – The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), where Russia and China play a major role, is set to deny membership to Iran at a meeting Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[175],"class_list":{"0":"post-8298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-iran-resistance","7":"tag-updated"},"yoast_head":"\n