India, Pak set for full SCO membership, Iran to lose out

Moscow: India and Pakistan are likely to be inducted as full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a regional security grouping once the organisation ratifies draft procedures and criteria for admission of new members. Under new rules Iran is likely to be left out as it is already under UN sanctions for its nuclear programmes.

"The country aspiring to join SCO should not be under the UN Security Council sanctions," a Russian diplomatic source was quoted as saying by ITAR-TASS.

Draft procedures and criteria for admission of new members to the regional grouping have been approved at a meeting in Tashkent of the foreign ministers of the SCO, and are likely to be finalised at the SCO summit next month in this Uzbek capital.

"The document sets out the start of the process of forming a legal base for the expansion of the organisation," Uzbek foreign minister Vladimir Norov announced in Tashkent.

India, along with Iran, Pakistan and Mongolia, currently enjoys an observer status in the SCO.

Ostensibly the grouping is intended to play a significant role in combating terrorism, drug trafficking and cross-border organised crime in the central Asian region, but in reality will serve as a counter-pressure group to pervasive Western influence in the region.