DUSHANBE, December 30, 2015, Asia-Plus — The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will consider Iran’s application for the full-fledged membership immediately after the UN sanctions are lifted, SCO Secretary General Dmitry Mezentsev said on December 28.
In July, Iran signed a deal with the P5+1 group of international mediators, including Russia, the United States, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, to ensure the peaceful nature of Tehran”s nuclear program in exchange for the removal of sanctions.
“The conditions under which the country under the UN Security Council sanctions cannot obtain the status of a full member have been prescribed at the first stage of the SCO formation. The organization wishes success to Iran in the completion of work on Iran”s nuclear program to implement as expeditiously as possible the necessary legal procedures for the sanctions’ lifting. I believe that after this, the organization will immediately return to Iran”s application for a full member status,” Mezentsev told Russian newspaper
Izvestiya
.
The SCO official noted that cooperation with Tehran, especially in the last two or three years, and the interest exhibited by the Iranian side created ”the basis of a new quality and depth of this country”s cooperation with the association.”
Moreover, in accordance with the decision of the SCO heads of state adopted during the Russian chairmanship, India and Pakistan will soon become the SCO member states, Mezentsev stressed.
Meanwhile, Iranian news agency
IRNA
reports that Iran has exported nine tons of its enriched uranium to Russia.
“Yesterday one of the most difficult tasks of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was implemented in one of the most complicated transfer operations of uranium reserves from Iran,” Iranian Foreign Ministry”s Director General for Political and Security Affairs Hamid Baeedinejad wrote on his Instagram page on December 29.
He noted that two months of hard work day and night was done for transfer of Iran”s uranium to Russia and the complicated operation took place in coordination with Russia and Kazakhstan.
“The (nuclear) fuel exchange is going on well; Iran has imported 137 tons of yellow cake from Russia and will export around 9 tons of its enriched uranium to Russia in the next few days,” Baeedinejad said.
On November 23, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi aid that Tehran has signed an agreement with Russia to export 9 tons of its enriched uranium and import 140 tons of uranium ore.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization currently has six full members — China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan are six observer states, and SCO’s dialogue partners include Sri Lanka and Turkey.
The Organization’s six full members account for 60% of the land mass of Eurasia and its population is a quarter of the world”s population. With observer states included, its affiliates account for about half of the world”s population.
