Laos receives SCO partner status

MINSK. Sept 1 (Interfax) - The Council of Heads of States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) granted SCO dialogue partner status to Laos at the summit in Tianjin, China.

"It is with satisfaction that the member states announce the decision to grant the Lao People's Democratic Republic the status of a SCO dialogue partner," the Tianjin declaration adopted by the SCO Council of Heads of State on Monday said.

The organization's member countries also decided to merge the observer and dialogue partner statuses into the SCO partner status.

Before the summit in China's Tianjin, Afghanistan and Mongolia had observer status with the SCO, while another 14 states, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cambodia, Egypt, Kuwait, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, held partner status.

Thus, 17 states will now hold SCO partner status.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was founded in 2001. Today, its member countries are Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.