"We believe that conditions have been created for accepting Iran’s membership application," he said.

Ushakov pointed out that specific progress should not be expected at the upcoming SCO summit. "There are minor differences in the stances of the member states that will be discussed at the upcoming summit," he stressed. "This is why I don’t expect any significant progress to be reached at the summit, but nevertheless, we believe that this issue needs to be solved sooner or later. And it better be sooner," the Kremlin aide added.

He also said that Tehran had submitted membership application back in 2008 but the United Nations Security Council’s sanctions on Iran had prevented it from being accepted. "Now the situation has changed so we think that such a large regional power could be granted SCO membership," Ushakov said.