July 19, 2019
Russia long ago said Iran would be able to join the Russian- and Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2016, but Tehran still hasn’t been allowed to join and the problem seems to be a blackball from Persian-speaking Tajikistan.
The SCO is not a very important international grouping, but the Islamic Republic has been in love with it and has been salivating to join for many years.
The organization was started in 2001 by China, Russia and the Central Asian nations (except for Turkmenistan) with the chief goal of preserving security in the region. In 2017, India and Pakistan were admitted as members—but Iran was pointedly shut out.
Iran applied to join and Russia publicly said Iran could not join while under sanctions but would be admitted as soon as UN sanctions were lifted, which happened in January 2016. More than three years have now passed and nothing has happened—and Iran has turned silent on membership. Iran remains an observer.
Now a retired Iranian diplomat has said the problem is Iran’s soured relations with Tajikistan.
In a recent interview with the Iranian Diplomacy website, Mohammad-Reza Forqani said the opposition of Tajikistan prevented Tehran from become a full member.
Ties between the two nations have been strained since a leader of a banned Tajik Islamist party attended an official conference in Tehran in 2015, which angered the government in Dushanbe.
In 2017, Tajikistan—a nation of 9 million people which is separated from Iran by Afghanistan—accused Tehran of sending assassins and saboteurs into the former Soviet republic when it was embroiled in the civil war. Tehran denies the allegations.
The shuttering of several Iranian centers in the country at the order of Tajik authorities and their decision to impose travel and trade restrictions on citizens and goods from Iran in recent years have also contributed to the souring in relations.
Another irritant has been the fate of the assets of jailed Iranian billionaire Babak Zanjani, whose international business empire included assets in Tajikistan.
Forqani said Tajik Foreign Minister Sirodjidin Mukhriddin’s recent visit to Iran helped resolve some of the differences between the two countries, which could eventually lead to Iran’s full membership in SCO.
Tajikistan and Afghanistan are the only countries were Persian is spoken outside Iran, and Iran has long sought to build cultural links among the three.
