Members of a Central Asian security forum controlled by Russia and China are predicted on Fri. to bar countries under U.N.
Sanctions from becoming full members of the group, a step that would block Iran’s entry. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation ( SCO ) is also sure to debate replenished violence in Kyrgyzstan at its yearly meeting after the member state announced a condition of emergency in southern regions after overnite rioting snuffed out 6.
Iran has observer standing in the six-nation SCO and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has upstaged prior events. At last year’s meeting, SCO leaders congratulated him on a contested re-election victory in a snub to the West. But Ahmadinejad hasn’t travelled to this year’s meeting in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, which happens a couple of days after the United States Security Council ordered a new round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
Asked whether the SCO would vote to bar membership for nations under U.N. Sanctions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared to ratify that a new condition for joining would be authorized along these lines. Lavrov did not want to provide extra details and didn’t name Iran specifically. He claimed earlier that Ahmadinejad himself had been invited to the meeting and decided himself not to attend. Russia and China, veto-wielding U.N. Security Council members, worked to water down the sanctions but voted in favor of them. Moscow’s support for the sanctions has soured its historically close ties with Iran.
Ahmadinejad on Tuesday warned the Kremlin against siding with “Iran’s enemies ” in supporting sanctions. The Kremlin reacted to similar comments in May by telling Iran’s leader to desist from “political demagoguery”.