Tashkent summit gives guidelines


Afp June 12, 2010

TASHKENT: A regional security organisation dominated by Russia and China agreed on Friday to open its doors to new members with the exception of Iran, recently slapped with sanctions over its nuclear programme.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) adopted the guidelines, seen as potentially allowing observer nations India and Pakistan to join, at its annual summit in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hailed the new guidelines as “laying the foundation for expanding the SCO framework.”

But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the leader of another SCO observer nation, Iran, stayed away from the summit after his country was slapped with fresh sanctions approved by the UN Security Council this week. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the newly adopted guidelines do not allow countries under UN sanctions to obtain membership, a major blow to Iran which sorely needs international support.

“It is written very clearly that one of the criteria (for membership) is that it is necessary not to be under UN Security Council sanctions,” Lavrov told reporters.

“If the Security Council has introduced sanctions, then that country cannot become a full member.”

Published in the Express Tribune, June 12th, 2010.

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