SCO issues its first nuclear-safety declaration as Iran takes fresh strikes

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation adopted its first dedicated declaration on nuclear safety and security at the Bishkek summit on 1 September. All ten members signed: China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus. The document is separate from the wider Bishkek Declaration that closed the 26th heads-of-state meeting.

The nuclear text says each state bears full responsibility for nuclear security on its soil, and that nuclear safety sits with the operator and the host state. Members recorded concern about illicit trafficking in nuclear and other radioactive material, threats to facilities and to computer systems, and the risk of nuclear terrorism. They condemned attacks, and threats of attacks, on peaceful nuclear facilities as a breach of international law.

Why the timing is not abstract

Iran has been an SCO member since 2023. In the same week as the summit, the United States and Iran traded strikes around the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian officials said a wedding in Sirik was hit. The SCO line on peaceful nuclear facilities is being read in that light, and in the older light of attacks on nuclear sites in other wars. Zhu Yongbiao of Lanzhou University, quoted after the summit, listed three drivers: China and Russia's wish for a written SCO framework, growing civilian nuclear work in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and Iran's presence at the table.

Members who are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty used the wider Bishkek texts to restate NPT compliance and the right to peaceful nuclear energy without discrimination. India is not an NPT signatory. Indian briefings were careful to separate that NPT paragraph from the standalone nuclear-security declaration, which Delhi did sign.

What the declaration actually asks members to do

The practical list is cooperation, not a new inspectorate. Members are to tighten domestic control of nuclear and radioactive material, share training and research, and exchange operating practice. They are to work on emergency response. There is no SCO equivalent of the IAEA in this paper. There is a political sentence that an attack on a civilian plant is unlawful.

Pakistan takes the SCO chair from Kyrgyzstan and will host the next heads-of-state meeting in 2027. The nuclear file will follow the chair. Whether it becomes drills, a data line, or another communiqué depends on what the energy ministries of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Iran put on the agenda once the cameras leave Bishkek.