The SCO
includes countries in Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Russia,
Pakistan, Uzbekistan and China. These are important countries because
Russia and China tend to position themselves at odds with the US. This is
increasingly true with Russia after the Ukraine invasion. Russia and the West
appear to have completely destroyed their relations, and Iran would like to
swoop in and benefit.
Iran calls this multilateralism. Recently in an interview
with the Chinese People’s Daily Online published on Saturday, Mohammad
Keshavarzzadeh stated that the SCO seeks to assist in providing better answers
to the problems faced by member states as well as the region.
He argued that there was great “significance of Iran joining
the bloc by pointing out that the organization includes members from Central
and Eastern Asia in addition to other regions, and this can give Iran a
platform to make overtures with all of these countries.”
The
reason Iran likes the SCO is that it views it as an organization that has no
Western members. “On a question that some Western nations equate the SCO with
NATO, Keshavarzzadeh said such a comparison is wrong because the SCO is an
inclusive bloc and not a military alliance,” a report in Tehran Times noted.
These are pro-regime publications and reflect Iran’s stance.
An article at the Carnegie Endowment for International peace
notes that Iran joining the SCO will bring some benefits to Tehran, but there
are also hurdles.
“Iranian
officials still maintain that officially joining the SCO – which is slated to
occur by April 2023 – will bring benefits in the economic, commercial, and
strategic sectors. Furthermore, from the perspective of the SCO itself, Iran’s
political cooperation may be useful for the organization’s relations with the
Islamic world,” the report noted.
It also notes that trade between Iran and SCO countries
surpassed US$651 billion last year. But Iran will need to modernize its
infrastructure to take advantage of any new opportunities. Also, the new China-Iran
partnership will take a while to be realized in terms of benefits for
Tehran.
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