Pakistan on Thrusday sought full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a regional grouping in which India has an observer status.
The stability and prosperity of the SCO region is critical to global security, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said while addressing a key meeting of the grouping at Dushanbe in Tajikistan.
"We also look forward to early upgradation of our status as full member of the SCO," Mr Gilani said in his address at the 9th SCO Heads of Government Council meeting.
"Development is high on Pakistan's priorities. we are keen to participate actively in promoting SCO's economic agenda," Pakistan's APP news agency quoted him as saying.
Besides India, Pakistan, Iran and Mangolia are the other three countries having observer status in SCO, which was created in Shanghai in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The group aims at strengthening mutual confidence and good-neighbourly relations among the member countries. Besides, it aims at making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region.