The Strategic Role of Iran for the SCO: Strengthening Eurasian Integration

Abstract

The process of integration in the Eurasian region is important for all states and after the 2014 Ukraine crisis, Russia’s greater Eurasian policy and the expansion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the conditions for integration have become more suitable than before. After a decade and a half of observer membership, Iran has finally become an official member of SCO in 2022, and it seems that due to the wide territorial contiguity from the borders of Türkiye to Afghanistan, new possibilities for regional integration have been created. This article is written with the aim of discussing Iran’s role in Eurasian integration after the membership in the SCO. The main question in this article is that how Iran can contribute to Eurasian regional integration within the framework of this organization? The author’s idea is that Iran’s membership in the SCO, through the increasing expansion of the connections of the Eurasian region to South Asia and the Middle East, provides more opportunities for cooperation in confronting the sources of regional insecurity, cooperation in the field of trade and the expansion of regional transport and communications and this issue can contribute to economic development, security and broader regional integration in the region. The author has tried to use the theory of regional integration and the method of qualitative content analysis of documents, texts, reports and news related to the Eurasian integration to verify the hypothesis. The findings of this research show that the greater Eurasian region needs a wider integration in the fields of economy, trade, communication and transportation, and the solution to reduce its problems is possible through the cooperation of all effective regional actors, and Iran is also one of the effective countries that has been a missing linkage in Eurasian integration and any comprehensive security and economic integration in Eurasia requires its active participation, which an official member of the SCO has created this opportunity.