ReutersCopyright: ReutersRussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Astana.Image caption: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meets his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Astana.Moving about 1,000 miles (1,600km) north-east to Kazakhstan, government officials from Russia, China, India and Pakistan have recently paid tribute to the late Iranian president by observing a minute’s silence at the start of a China-led trade summit.Foreign ministers and diplomats from about a dozen of Iran’s political and economic partners are meeting in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.”Despite these difficult times, Iranian representatives are taking part in this ministerial council for the first time,” Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has said, according to AFP. The regional bloc – which Iran joined last year – is designed to boost relations, trade and investment between among its members, primarily with four Central Asian republics – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Beijing and Moscow are close allies of Tehran and in the immediate aftermath of the crash, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi went on to claim that his country had assisted with the search and rescue efforts while Russia has offered to help investigate the cause of the crash, which remains unclear.



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