Translated with AI
Armenia has applied to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization two weeks after it received observer status at the SCO, the press service of the CIS Executive Committee reported.
Armenia has applied to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a press conference, Novosti Armenia reports. He explained that this is in line with the logic of the republic's balanced and considered policy.
"By the way, we have observer status in this organization. In other words, it's not like we came from scratch, had no voting rights there, and suddenly decided to become a member of the organization," Pashinyan said.
According to the Prime Minister, the decision of the Armenian authorities is also connected with “significant and structural changes that are taking place in the organization.”
“The issue of canceling the status of observer or associate member is being discussed,” he clarified.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an international association consisting of ten states with a total population of about 3.5 billion people. These are Russia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus. It was founded on June 15, 2001, at a meeting of the heads of these states in the Chinese city of Shanghai. The official languages are Russian and Chinese.
Armenia requested SCO observer status, which precedes full participation in the group, in July 2024. Azerbaijan also requested observer status at the same time, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country should join the SCO as a permanent member.
A year later, following a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan publicly announced Yerevan’s desire to become a permanent member of the SCO.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic noted that Yerevan decided to join, “sharing the fundamental principles of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, namely territorial integrity, non-use of force and inviolability of borders.”
At the same time, Mirzoyan told Chinese journalists about the need to officially “raise” relations between Yerevan and Beijing to a “new level.”
