SCO Secretary General: Azerbaijan, Armenia  are active partners in   SCO dialogue

ArmInfo. The decision on admission to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is made by all member states through consensus based on the goals and principles outlined in the charter, provisions of other international treaties and SCO documents. SCO Secretary General Nurlan Ermekbayev mad this statement this in an interview with RIA Novosti, in response to the question about the feasibility of admitting Armenia and Azerbaijan  during the upcoming summit of the organization, scheduled to take place from August 31 to September 1 in Tianjin, China.

The SCO Secretary General emphasized that all existing requests are  currently being considered by  SCO member states. He noted that it  would be incorrect to jump ahead and make predictions. When asked  whether the cooling of relations between Russia and Azerbaijan and  Russia and Armenia could impact their prospects in  SCO, Nurlan  Yermekbayev noted that he did not have complete information on this  issue. "I don't feel entitled to comment on bilateral issues. I can  note that both Azerbaijan and Armenia are active partners in the SCO  dialogue, participate in common cooperation and joint events. Here it  is worth referring to the SCO Charter, which upholds the consensus  principle of making collective decisions within the organization. In  this context, it is appropriate to recall the statement of the SCO  Heads of State Council on the principles of good-neighborliness,  trust and partnership adopted at the Astana summit in 2024, which  states that member states adhere to the principle of peaceful  resolution of disagreements, while bilateral contentious issues are  not considered at meetings of the SCO bodies," he said.