SCO Meet In Dushanbe, Good Opportunity For Iran

Tehran, Sept 13, IRNA - ˈIran Dailyˈ on Saturday commented on the recently concluded summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, which was attended by President Hassan Rouhani. Iran is trying to increase its regional role by boosting cooperation with SCO members, wrote the English-language paper in its Opinion column referring to some points in this regard. - The Dushanbe summit is a good opportunity for top Iranian officials to hold meetings with leaders of other states and discuss latest regional and international developments. Rouhani’s meetings with his Chinese and Russian counterparts, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, were very important because the leaders had a chance to discuss international issues, bilateral ties as well as the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program. - The Rouhani administration is looking at SCO from a different angle. The government is trying to balance its relations with the West and the East. Based on this policy, it has made efforts to restore strained ties with the West including the European Union and at the same time has boosted cooperation with the East. But it seems that Iran is going to be more successful in dealing with SCO countries and it is possible that the organization will ask Iran to change its status from observer to permanent. Therefore, the positively balanced policy sought by Rouhani in his government’s foreign relations will secure a bigger part of national interests of the people of Iran. - Iran is seeking to balance its relations between the West and the East, as it is trying to pursue its regional and global policies based on national interests and not just according to collective cooperation or the situation within regional frameworks. While the Rouhani administration is looking to increase bilateral relations with countries such as Russia, China and India, it wants to play an active role in organizations like the Non-Aligned Movement. Iran will not join political, military and security games because of the interests of a specific country like Russia and will prefer its national interests at the first step, noted the daily. For example, Iran and Russia have common policy on the issue of Syria and therefore they have cooperated to end the crisis, but the policy of the two sides on Ukraine is not the same, it added. Relations between Russia and Ukraine have faced difficulties in recent months, but Tehran maintained good ties with Kiev and tried to base its action on its interests and Moscow understood this. Mutually, Iran also understood Russia’s alliance with Western states (because of its strategic relations with the West) in imposing sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear programs. - Another point is that, Russia, in view of the new situation in relations with the West, is trying to increase security ties with Eastern states in the form of collective cooperation and organizations such as the SCO. Moscow has sought to set up as a common front against the West in a bid to be strong against the Western security organizations. These efforts were not successful because of lack of cooperation by SCO members. For example, all permanent members of the SCO have not given a no vote to a UN resolution on Ukraine and tried not to enter the dispute between Kiev and Moscow by abstaining. However, China, as one of the important members of SCO that has broad economic ties with the West, showed that it can not ignore its economic interactions because of Russia. The opposition of SCO to unilateral policies of the US in its summits was one of the successful policies of Russia in this organization. In this regard, Iran also has followed up the policies of boosting mutual and multilateral relations with other states based on its interests and the situation in the region.