Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council

Iran’s top security official says the country’s membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will be finalized as political obstacles have been removed.

Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), said in a post on his official Twitter page on Wednesday that he had discussed the developments in Afghanistan, Syria and the Persian Gulf with his Russian counterpart, adding that Iran’s membership to the SCO was also examined in his meeting with Head of Russia’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev.

Fortunately, the political obstacles to #Iran’s membership in the #ShanghaiCO have been removed & Iran’s membership will be finalized, he added.

The SCO is an association of Eurasian political, economic and security alliance founded in 2001 in Shanghai by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The alliance is the largest regional organization in the world in terms of geopolitical coverage and population, covering three-fifths of the Eurasian continent and nearly half of the human population.

Under the SCO Charter signed in 2002, the member nations cooperate on security and military issues, especially with respect to terrorism, as well as on economic, environmental, cultural, scientific, and other issues.

The SCO has now eight member states and four observer states.

Having attained observer status in 2005, Iran officially applied for membership twice, in 2008 and 2009 respectively, but it is still waiting to be inducted.