Islamabad, June 7 (IANS): Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will attend the 17th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Kazakhstan capital Astana, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
Pakistan will become a full member of the SCO at the Astana summit starting on Thursday, the Ministry said. Islamabad had been a SCO observer since 2005.
On the sidelines of the SCO summit, Sharif will hold a number of bilateral meetings with other participating leaders, Xinhua news agency reported.
SCO, established in 2001, is a regional political, economic and security organisation that includes China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as full members.
India and Pakistan's SCO accession procedures started in 2015. The two signed the SCO Memorandum of Obligations in June 2016, kickstarting the formal process of joining SCO as full members.