Global

The 2026 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Heads of State summit takes place from Tuesday, September 1, in Bishkek. It is being hosted by the president of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov, who currently holds the SCO chair. High-level meetings will also be held in the SCO Plus format. The SCO summit will be attended by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko; Chinese President Xi Jinping; Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi; Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian; Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev; Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif; Russian President Vladimir Putin; Tajik President Emomali Rahmon; Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev; as well as  Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev; Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan; Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh; Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Togo Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé; Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; Laos President Thongloun Sisoulith; the Vice President of Vietnam Võ Thị Ánh Xuân; and the Deputy Prime Minister of Egypt Hussein Issa. Representatives of international organisations include UN Secretary-General António Guterres; CIS Secretary-General Sergei Lebedev; CSTO Secretary-General Taalatbek Masadykov; Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission Bakytzhan Sagintaev; and Secretary General of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia Kairat Sarybay. The member-state session brings together Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Combined, these ten SCO countries have a collective GDP (PPP) of about 36% of the global total (US$80 trillion) and a population of about 3.4 billion. They will discuss pressing issues on the international and regional agenda and priority areas for the SCO’s development, as well as prospects for deepening cooperation in the political, trade and economic, transport and logistics, digital, environmental, cultural and humanitarian spheres. Following the meeting, a ‘Bishkek Declaration’, marking the 25th anniversary of the SCO, as well as documents and decisions aimed at further strengthening multifaceted cooperation and improving the organisation’s activities, will be signed. A number of thematic statements by the heads of state will also be adopted. At the expanded SCO Plus format, participants will exchange views on strengthening the central coordinating role of the United Nations and international law, as well as promoting sustainable development and expanding mutually beneficial cooperation.

For about one month, since July, the confrontion between the United States and Iran has largely been limited to verbal abuse and threats. This strange lull in military hostilities has now been broken. Iran says it launched missiles at two US bases in Jordan following a US attack on Larak Island in southern Iran earlier on Sunday. US forces struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island on Sunday, marking the first known American attack on Iran since late July and triggering a fresh escalation between Washington and Tehran. Iran said the strike killed and wounded soldiers and civilians, while the Revolutionary Guards vowed a response and later claimed attacks on US military positions in Jordan and a UAE air base. A US official confirmed that American forces targeted two Iranian launchers on Larak Island after Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces were observed preparing to launch rockets carrying sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz. US Central Command spokesman Cdr Tim Hawkins said the operation was a “limited, precise action” against minelaying forces that posed an imminent threat to the strategic waterway. The US military did not identify the target in its social media post, but a US official confirmed to Reuters that the strike took place on Larak Island. In a statement reported by Iranian news agencies on Sunday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the combined missile and drone operation, which it called “Punishment of the Aggressor”, hit the King Hussein and Al Azraq bases in Jordan. The exchange of attacks is the first flare-up in violence between the two sides since late July. The IRGC said the strikes “destroyed the technical and repair infrastructure, as well as the enemy fighter deployment sites”, inflicting significant damage. Jordan reported intercepting eight missiles soon after the IRGC announced the attack. “Air defence systems intercepted eight missiles that breached the Kingdom’s airspace at dawn today, Monday,” the Jordanian military said in a statement. No injuries were reported at either base. In a further development on Monday, the IRGC said it shot down a US MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Fars and Mehr news agencies cited a statement from the IRGC that said that its air defences had intercepted “a long-range American MQ9 drone” over the Strait of Hormuz, which then fell into the Gulf. In his first comments since the US attack on Iran’s Larak Island, President Masoud Pezeshkian said that Tehran was “not looking for war”, but would “never sit still in the face of any aggression” either. Pezeshkian made the comments as he was leaving for Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, to attend the summit of the heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation countries.