SCO hails cooperation with Iran and hopes for swift lifting of UN SC anti-Iranian sanctions

MOSCOW, July 28. /TASS/. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) hails cooperation with Iran and hopes for the swift lifting of United Nations Security Council sanctions off that country, SCO secretary general Dmitry Mezentsev said on Tuesday. "Since 2005, Iran has been enjoying an observer status with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and I would like to note that in the recent years we have been seeing a new quality of cooperation between Iran and our organization. We hail and support it," Mezentsev said at a forum of media executives of the SCO member states. He pointed to the fact that Iran had been taking an active part in practically all ministerial meetings of the organization. "So, we would like the United Nations Security Council to lift its sanctions completely and swiftly," he said. The United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran four times - in 2006, in 2007, in 2008 and in 2010. The sanctions ban exports of nuclear technologies and materials to Iran, export and import of weapons, money lending to Iran and freezing accounts of a number of Iranian individuals and companies. On July 14, 2015, Teheran and the P5+1 group of international mediators (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany) reached an agreement on the Iranian nuclear programme and signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. On July 20, the United Nation Security Council endorsed a procedure of phased lifting of international sanctions off Iran. Under the Security Council resolution, the sanctions will be abandoned in ten years in case Iran implements agreements reached with the six powers. A major step on the path of sanction lifting is to be a report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Teheran’s fulfilment of key provisions of the Vienna deal. Read more