Putin, Jinping to meet in Samarkand within SCO Summit

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Samarkand on the sidelines of the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit, Russian Ambassador to China Andrey Denisov said, Report informs referring to Sputnik-Uzbekistan.

The summit will be held in Uzbekistan on September 15-16. It will be attended by leaders of member states of the organization, observer countries and invited presidents.

The SCO, which was established in 2001, includes Uzbekistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, India and Pakistan.

Observer countries are Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia, partner countries are Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkiye and Sri Lanka. At the SCO summit in Dushanbe in September 2021, the procedure for admitting Iran to the organization and granting the status of a dialogue partner to Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia was launched. This year, Belarus officially applied to join the SCO as a full member.