Iran officially becomes SCO member state

On Tuesday, a flag-raising ceremony was held for Iran in Beijing, marking the nation's official membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the ninth member state to join the bloc. 　

SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming and Iran's Ambassador to China, Mohsen Bakhtiar, were among the officials who attended the ceremony. 　

Last September, Iran signed a memorandum at the SCO summit in Samarkand on its obligations to join the SCO.