Head of State Alexander Lukashenko counts on the support of Kazakhstan, chairing the SCO, to make Belarus a member of this international organization as early as in the summer. He said this at a meeting with Kazakhstan's Ambassador to Belarus Yerlan Baizhanov, BelTA informs.
The head of state noted that Kazakhstan currently chairs the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). "We know that in February you ratified all the documents on Belarus' membership in the SCO. We are very grateful to you for this," said the President of Belarus.
He noted that the next SCO summit is tentatively scheduled to be held in Astana in July this year. "It would be very symbolic and we would welcome it if Belarus became a full-fledged member of the SCO in Astana. We will ask you to do so. Of course, a lot depends on the presiding party. And our Ministry of Foreign Affairs should work more actively in this regard," said the Belarusian leader.
Earlier in an interview with BELTA, SCO Deputy Secretary General Nurlan Yermekbayev said that there are all the grounds for Belarus to become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the near future. "We all hope, and there are all grounds for this, that in the near future the Republic of Belarus will become a full-fledged member state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization," he said.
