Belarus has applied for admission to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), acting Uzbek Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov said.
"If a joint decision is made, and I believe it will be, the Samarkand summit [of the SCO] will approve the beginning of a procedure to admit Belarus to the SCO as a member," Izvestia quoted Norov as saying at a roundtable in Moscow.
Currently, Belarus is a SCO observer state.
The next SCO summit will take place in Samarkand in September.
Established in 2001, the SCO comprises India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Afghanistan, Iran, Mongolia, and Belarus are SCO observer states, while Sri Lanka, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, and Nepal are partners.
