"The decision on the admission of Iran to the SCO should be made unanimously by all members of this organisation," said the diplomat. He noted that at present Iran has the status of a country observer at the SCO.

On Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran has submitted an official application to the secretariat of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to get membership of the SCO. At this moment, the SCO has five permanent members – Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, while Iran, Mongolia, India and Pakistan have the status of observers there.

Mottaki was visiting the Tajikistani capital Dushanbe for talks with foreign ministers of Tajikistan and Afghanistan. They are preparing a summit conference of the three Iranic-speaking countries.

Monday, Mottaki was received by Tajikistani President Emomali Rakhmon. He said after the talks that Rakhmon had backed Iran’s willingness to get SCO membership.

Well-informed sources in the government told Itar-Tass creation of an economic union by the three countries is one of the key issues the Iranian, Tajikistani and Afghan foreign ministers are discussing here.

The most widely spoken Iranic languages are Persian /in the Iranian, Dari and Tajik forms/, Pashto, Kurdish and Balochi that have about 152 million native speakers altogether.

This group of the Indo-European tongues also includes a number of languages spoken by smaller ethnic groups, including the Ossetians and Tats in the Caucasus.