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Russia, China but No Iran at SCO Summit

ALMATY, Kazakhstan? — The leaders of Russia and China will discuss global financial markets and tensions on the Korean Peninsula during the annual summit of a regional security grouping on Thursday, a Kremlin source said.

But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hit with new UN sanctions targeting Tehran’s nuclear program, is unlikely to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in Uzbekistan, two sources said.

The six-nation SCO, led by Russia and China, will meet in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, on Thursday, a day after the United Nations Security Council approved new sanctions against a defiant Iran. The regional security bloc will discuss the fight against terrorism and extremism as well as drug trafficking from Afghanistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been invited.

Ahmadinejad has stolen the limelight before at major conferences, including an SCO meeting in Shanghai in 2006 that was dominated by news about Iran’s nuclear program. When the grouping met in Russia last year, SCO leaders congratulated Ahmadinejad on his disputed re-election in what was seen as a snub to the West.

Iran has observer status in the SCO, and a Chinese official had said Ahmadinejad might attend. But Iran’s ambassador to Tajikistan, where Ahmadinejad was attending a water conference, said Wednesday that the president would not participate.

“President Ahmadinejad is not going to the summit in Tashkent. Instead he is leaving Dushanbe on Thursday morning to Shanghai” for the World Expo, Ambassador Ali-Asghar Sherdoost said.

A source in the Kremlin also said he would not attend.

Russia and Iran have close ties but have clashed over Kremlin support for the new UN sanctions.

Ahmadinejad on Tuesday warned the Kremlin against siding with “Iran’s enemies” in supporting sanctions. The Kremlin reacted to similar comments in May by telling Iran’s leader to refrain from “political demagoguery.”

The absence of the Iranian leader will allow the SCO’s members — China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — to focus on regional security issues.

“The SCO has plenty of its own problems to be dealing with: extremism, separatism, the threat of militancy and drug trafficking from Afghanistan,” said Kazakh political analyst Dosym Satpayev.

The political situation in Kyrgyzstan, where the president was overthrown in April, will be discussed, the Kremlin press service said in a statement. Interim Foreign Minister Ruslan Kazakbayev will represent Kyrgyzstan at the meeting.

The Kremlin source said President Dmitry Medvedev would meet Karzai and leaders from Pakistan, which also has observer status. His meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao would focus first and foremost on Korean tensions, the source said.

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