Iran31 August, 20263 min read
Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit Opens in Bishkek With Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian Attending
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Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends SCO summit in Bishkek. Xi and Putin hold bilateral talks on SCO sidelines amid broader gathering.
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Iran at SCO in Bishkek
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit began in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian among the leaders attending as the meeting’s agenda includes security, terrorism, and drug trafficking concerns in Afghanistan. The Afghans dossier was also on the agenda at a SCO foreign ministers’ meeting on July 24, where Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari described terrorism emanating from Afghanistan as one of the most serious security challenges facing his country, while Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stressed the need for a stable, terrorist-free Afghanistan. The summit’s Day One was described as primarily focused on bilateral and multilateral meetings among member states, with the main gathering of SCO leaders scheduled to be held Tuesday.
The summit is also framed as taking place amid heightened concerns about terrorist group activity, especially ISIS, in Afghanistan, with the Taliban movement not invited to participate again and not having a representative at the July 24 meeting either. On the margins of the summit, bilateral meetings were scheduled including between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of China, India, Iran, and Turkey, with topics on the agenda including economic, trade, energy, transport, and regional connectivity cooperation in addition to security issues.
Pezeshkian, Putin, Xi and war
On the sidelines of the SCO summit in Kyrgyzstan, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed their strategic alliance, with Xi telling Putin on Monday that he was “happy” to meet again and that bilateral ties have grown “more solid”. Xi warned that “the amount of uncertainty and unpredictability in the international order has obviously increased,” and Putin agreed that “cooperation is successfully developing on all fronts,” while the summit’s two-day schedule marked the 25th anniversary of the grouping. The Al Jazeera account also placed the Iran dimension directly into the summit’s timing, saying the six months into the war between the United States and Iran, and it noted that Putin is expected to hold separate talks with Pezeshkian.
In that same framing, Iran’s Pezeshkian told India’s Modi after the first exchange of fire between the United States and Iran in a month that “We continue to strive for a path of agreement and understanding, and we believe that continuing the war is neither in our interest, nor in the interest of the region.” The summit is described as bringing together over a dozen heads of state, including Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and it also said Putin and Xi have previously used SCO summits to promote their vision of a multipolar world and present a united front against the West.
What’s at stake for Iran
The SCO summit is presented as a platform where Iran’s participation tests the bloc’s cohesion as rising American threats against Iran cast a shadow over the meeting and put Tehran’s role under strain.
Ash-Sharq al-Akhbār said the escalating U.S. economic campaign led by President Donald Trump against Iran is testing the SCO’s unity, and it cited a Bloomberg assessment that Washington’s pressure is likely to push SCO members to show symbolic solidarity with Tehran at the summit.
The same account described the risk of additional U.S. sanctions raising the stakes for a bloc attempting to challenge a Western-dominated international order, while it also referenced U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warning of punishing countries that continue to engage economically with Tehran as part of Washington’s “economic containment” campaign.
In parallel, the Afghans International report said the agenda includes security issues and that heightened concerns about terrorist group activity, especially ISIS, in Afghanistan have long been among the topics in SCO discussions, with member states neighboring Afghanistan viewing that activity as a threat to regional security.
Together, the sources depict Iran’s presence in Bishkek as tied to both security discussions and the broader question of how the SCO responds to U.S. pressure, with the summit’s formal sessions and bilateral meetings expected to shape the next phase of engagement.