Iran, Belarus to be Newest SCO Members

Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO): It’s a Eurasian political, economic and military organization aiming to maintain peace, security and stability in the region.
It is a successor organization to Shanghai Five, which was a mutual security agreement signed by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.
On 2001 these countries and Uzbekistan announced the formation of a new collective aimed at increasing the political and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.
This resulted in the formation of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
India and Pakistan joined the organization in 2017.

The addition of Iran and Belarus can be seen as a move to change SCO into a counter for the US led alliance especially NATO.

However, India as a founding member of Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) is not likely to support a move which can be seen as targeting the US.
The current Indo-China relationship is also not conducive to creating a cohesive alliance.
While Indo-Russian relationship is still strong as it has always been, the lack of economic ties between the two is a cause for concern.
Meanwhile China has been the largest trading partner for Russia for many years and it will remain the same for many more to come.
With India moving closer to the West with the creation of organisations such as QUAD and I2U2, it is unlikely that SCO in its current format will ever take a hard stance against the West.

The geostrategic importance of the members of SCO cannot be overstated.
Central Asia is a region rich in resources such as Crude oil and even Uranium.
However, due to their continentality they cannot export sufficient quantities to the global market.
Hence, if a SCO led connectivity project is created, all the countries in the region including India will be greatly benefiting.

Source The Hindu

For more updates, Click Here

Believers IAS Academy