DUSHANBE, February 19, Asia-Plus — “Iran’s ambitions to create regional military alliance could be realized within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO),” Amirqul Azimov, Secretary of Tajikistan”s Council, told Asia-Plus on Monday.
He remarked this commenting on proposal of Iran’s Prosecutor-General Qurban Ali Dorri Najafabadi to create the regional military coalition.
Iran’s news agency IRNA quoted Iran’s prosecutor-general as saying that the main objective of the coalition is joint protection of interests of the countries of the region against possible foreign intervention. The Iranian prosecutor suggested that that the coalition should be set up with establishment of 25 countries: Kazakhstan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Yemen, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Oman, Kyrgyzstan, Syria, Tajikistan, Jordan, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, Georgia, Armenia, Palestine, Kuwait, Qatar, Lebanon, Cyprus and Bahrain.
In the meantime, Azimov noted that Iran has not yet officially put forth its proposal for the establishment of such a collation. The Security Council secretary added that implementation of that proposal is mainly dependent on the statues and interactions among those 25 countries, because each of those twenty-five countries is a member of a different regional, or international military organization, and is pursuing different policies for their security and the regional stability.
Since regional security is of great importance today, Iran”s proposal can be put forth within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), as well, Azimov said.
Tajikistan is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and will host the SCO summit meeting in Dushanbe next summer, when Iran would attend the summit as an observer for the first time. Experts and political scientists believe that talks on accepting Iran as a main member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization would be among major topics of the summit.
