Tehran, Iran, June 24
By Mehdi Sepahvand – Trend:
Iran has denied that there is opposition against the country’s accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a permanent member.
“There has been no decision regarding Iran’s accession and Iran has not submitted any membership documents yet,” the country’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Asia-Pacific Affairs Ebrahim Rahimpour said, IRNA news agency reported June 23.
Earlier some news outlets claimed that Iran’s membership had been opposed to. Some reports said China was the opposing side.
This is while the other members, such as Russia stood behind Tehran, with President Vladimir Putin saying the same day that there is nothing to stop Iran from accession.
There was another parallel story that was swiftly denied by Tehran. The Iranian ILNA news agency on the same day said Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif left the SCO meeting as protest.
Sources a few hours later quoted Rahimpour as saying Zarif had only left to say his prayers.
The SCO is a Eurasian political, economic, and military organization which was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.