Putin, Xi, Iran's Pezeshkian Head to Bishkek SCO Summit
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- Putin, Xi Jinping, Iran's Pezeshkian, India's Modi and Pakistan's Shehbaz Sharif attend the Bishkek gathering marking the SCO's 25th anniversary, chaired by Kyrgyz leader Sadyr Japarov with around a dozen heads of state present.
- Putin is expected to hold separate bilateral talks with both Pezeshkian and Xi on the sidelines, per Kremlin spokesman Yuri Ushakov.
- The SCO, which claims to represent 40% of the world's population and 25% of global GDP, now has 10 full members plus 15 dialogue partners (including Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Qatar) and 2 observers (Afghanistan and Mongolia).
- The summit coincides with Washington's new secondary sanctions this month on Iran's trading partners across gold, tech, digital assets, aviation and maritime transport; China, a major Iranian oil buyer, said it will "firmly defend" its interests.
- Russia and Iran have "massively deepened" military and economic ties during the Ukraine war, though Pezeshkian acknowledged his country faces "economic difficulties"; Tehran joined the bloc in 2023 partly to circumvent Western sanctions, per AFP-cited expert Mohammad Hassan Najmi.
- Despite the SCO's founding declaration that it is "not an alliance directed against other states," Putin and Xi have repeatedly used summits to deliver anti-Western speeches — Putin accusing the West of provoking the Ukraine war and Xi denouncing "acts of intimidation."
Why it matters: Two sanctions-hit war powers (Russia and Iran) and their key backers (China, India) convene just as Washington has imposed new secondary sanctions on Iran's trading partners and tariffs on Chinese and Indian goods. The bloc's promise of sanctions-circumvention becomes more urgent for Iran's economy, though AFP-cited expert Mohammad Hassan Najmi said concrete SCO benefits for Tehran remain uncertain "in times of crisis."
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