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Rouhani’s Central Asia Policies In Spotlight at SCO Summit

Iran’s Central Asia policies under Iranian President Hassan Rouhani come into focus at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Bishkek, Kyrzygstan.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) meets with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Bishkek, September 13, 2013. Rouhani said on Friday that he wanted a swift resolution to a dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme, which Western states fear is aimed at developing nuclear weapons.  REUTERS/Mikhail Klimentyev/RIA Novosti/Kremlin (KYRGYZSTAN - Tags: POLITICS) ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, E

TEHRAN, Iran — With a raft of nuclear talks penciled in for the UN General Assembly (Sept. 24-Oct. 2) and a Russian plan to pluck Syrian chemical weapons from state hands, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani doubtless had plenty to discuss with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and the Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit on Sept. 13-14.

But Rouhani’s two-day trip to the SCO Summit was also about meeting Central Asian’s top brass to make good on his campaign promise of pursuing a policy of “regionalism.”

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