Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a Eurasian political, economic, and security organisation founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. It expanded to include India and Pakistan in 2017, and Iran became a full member in June 2023, making the SCO the first major multilateral organisation to grant Iran full membership during the period of Western sanctions. The SCO collectively covers roughly 40 per cent of the world's population and 30 per cent of global GDP.

In the 2026 Iran conflict, the SCO has emerged alongside BRICS as a pillar of Iran's non-Western diplomatic architecture. In March 2026, Iranian parliamentarians proposed a replacement nuclear treaty with SCO and BRICS member states as part of a bill to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The proposal reflected Tehran's calculation that SCO membership provides an alternative great-power security guarantee framework if the JCPOA track collapses entirely. With the BRICS Delhi meeting of 14-15 May 2026 bringing Araghchi, Lavrov, and Jaishankar together — all of whom are senior representatives of SCO member states — the two organisations function as overlapping non-Western counter-architecture to the Western-led sanctions and military pressure.

The SCO's security dimension is governed by its Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) and a framework of bilateral defence agreements among members. However, the organisation has no collective defence obligation comparable to NATO's Article 5: SCO membership does not obligate Russia or China to defend Iran militarily. The SCO's practical value to Tehran is diplomatic legitimacy, institutional counter-weight to Western isolation, and a framework for proposing alternative verification mechanisms outside the IAEA if the Majlis's NPT withdrawal bill advances.