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New Delhi: The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on Tuesday (September 1) condemned military strikes on Iran and backed a political and diplomatic resolution to the conflict in a declaration endorsed by all ten member states, including India, but stopped short of naming Israel and the United States as it had done last year.

The Bishkek Declaration, which marks 25 years of the regional grouping, says member states “reiterate the SCO’s previously stated position condemning military strikes on the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran”, which it said had caused civilian casualties and significant economic damage.

Such actions, it says, violated the principles and norms of international law and the UN Charter and created “serious risks to international peace, security and stability”.

The joint declaration, along with 27 other documents, was signed by the heads of all member countries, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and the leaders of Pakistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan at the close of the 26th meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State.

Unlike the 2025 Tianjin Declaration, however, the new document does not identify the countries responsible for the strikes. Last year, the SCO had “strongly condemned the military strikes by Israel and the United States of America against the Islamic Republic of Iran in June 2025” and described them as a violation of international law and Iran’s sovereignty.

The latest declaration nevertheless reiterates support for Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and says the conflict should be resolved “solely through political and diplomatic means”.

There has been a renewal in exchange of military strikes between Iran and the US after Washington struck Iranian rocket launchers in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday after a more than month-long lull in fighting.

The SCO’s position drew on a statement issued on March 2, two days into the Iran war, which called the use of force unacceptable and demanded that the UN Security Council “take immediate measures to counteract the undermining of international peace and security”. That statement also named no perpetrator of the attacks.

Incidentally, India had dissociated itself from the statement by the SCO on the 12-day Iran war last year, which had condemned “the military strikes carried out by Israel on the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran on June 13”.

However, ten weeks later, Modi signed a declaration in Tianjin, China in September that described the June strikes as “a gross violation of the principles and norms of international law and the UN Charter, and an infringement on the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

The SCO member states also expressed their “sincere condolences to the people and Government of the Islamic........

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