ASTANA – Ambassador-at-Large of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry Murat Mukushev has been appointed Kazakhstan’s National Coordinator for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), following President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s decree signed on April 6, reported the Akorda press service.
Murat Mukushev. Photo credit: Foreign Ministry.
Born in 1983 in the East Kazakhstan Region, Mukushev graduated from the Amanzholov East Kazakhstan State University. He also studied at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. Mukushev previously held various positions in the Foreign Ministry, Kazakh embassies, and the Senate, an upper chamber of the Kazakh Parliament.
Almaty became the SCO cultural and tourism capital for the coming years, as Kazakhstan is preparing to take over the SCO chairmanship from July 2023 to July 2024.
SCO is a permanent intergovernmental international organization founded on June 15, 2001, in Shanghai by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
In 2017, India and Pakistan were granted the status of SCO full members. In 2021, the SCO leaders approved Iran’s bid to join the SCO. During the SCO summit in Samarkand last year, the member states decided to start the accession of Belarus to the SCO.
At the end of March this year, the SCO welcomed Saudi Arabia as a dialogue partner along with Qatar and Egypt who signed respective memoranda in Samarkand.
