Uzbekistan, the current chair of the organization, will host the annual summit in the city of Samarkand on September 15-16. The meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the SCO member states is currently underway in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent.
"The heads of the SCO observer states, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia, as well as the president of Turkmenistan, confirmed their participation in the meeting of the Council of Heads of State," Norov said.
Other senior officials — including UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and heads of executive departments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and other organizations — also confirmed their participation in the summit, Norov noted.
The SCO is an international organization founded in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia and Uzbekistan. The SCO's observer countries include Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia, while partner countries are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey. At the summit in Dushanbe in September 2021, the SCO launched the procedure for admitting Iran to the organization and granting dialogue partner status to Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Earlier this month, Belarus submitted its application to join the SCO. SCO Secretary General Zhang Ming confirmed the receipt of Belarus' application and said that the organization stands ready to begin all necessary legal procedures.