MINSK, June 30 Council of the Republic (upper chamber of the Belarusian parliament) approved on Friday a bill on Belarus' accession to international treaties within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
“The draft law was approved by the Council of the Republic,” the chamber's press service reported.
The bill must still be signed by the president of the republic. Earlier on the same day, the bill was adopted by the lower house of the Belarusian parliament — the House of Representatives.
The draft law has been prepared as part of the ongoing work on Belarus' accession to the SCO. The document provides, within the framework of the process of obtaining the status of a SCO member by the republic, to join 22 international treaties with seven amendments to them, which were adopted within the organization.
In particular, the bill proposes to accede to the basic statutory documents of the SCO that ensure the functioning of the organization (the SCO Charter, the agreement on the procedure for the formation and execution of the SCO budget, the convention on the privileges and immunities of the SCO), as well as to agreements on specific areas of cooperation : the agreement on long-term good neighborliness, friendship and cooperation of the SCO states, the SCO convention against terrorism, the convention on countering extremism and others.
Belarus is an observer in the SCO. The document on the start of the procedure for admitting Belarus to the SCO membership was signed following the organization's summit in Samarkand, which was held on September 15-16, 2022. In February, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree approving a memorandum on the republic's obligations to obtain the status of a member of the SCO.
The SCO is an international organization founded in 2001. It includes India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.