What ECO is and how it works

The treaty, and where it is deposited

The Treaty of Izmir was originally signed at Izmir on 12 March 1977 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, and amended in 1990 and in 1992. The Secretariat's own account of the sequence starts earlier: the Regional Cooperation for Development was founded in 1964 by those same three states, was renamed the Economic Cooperation Organization in 1985, and became operational in January 1991 with permanent headquarters at Tehran.

The text now in force was done at Izmir on 14 September 1996, after the enlargement, and every government then in membership is named in its opening paragraph. It was drawn up in one original copy in the English language. It supersedes the treaty of March 1977 and the protocols of 1990 and 1992, and it came into force once two thirds of the members had deposited their instruments of ratification with the Government of Iran, which the treaty names as the host government.

Article XIV makes English the official language of the organisation and provides for unofficial Russian translation and interpretation. The member records list English among the languages of Pakistan and Russian among those of Kazakhstan, and neither language appears on any other member's record.

What joining takes, and what leaving takes

Article XIII opens membership to any state enjoying geographical contiguity with the ECO region and, or alternatively, sharing the objectives and principles of ECO. An application goes through the Secretary General to the Council of Ministers, which admits by unanimous vote. The applicant then accedes in accordance with its own constitutional rules and deposits its instrument of ratification with the Government of Iran. Pending that ratification it may, with the concurrence of the Council, take part as a full member and pay its assessed contribution.

Withdrawal is written down as plainly. A member gives formal notice to the Secretary General, who circulates it, and the withdrawal takes effect six months after the notice is received and once all financial obligations to the organisation have been settled.

Article XII sorts decisions into two piles. Admission of members, observers and dialogue partners, budgetary arrangements, anything with financial implications, the appointment of the Secretary General, economic strategies and amendments to the treaty are taken by unanimity. Everything else needs a simple majority of the total membership, provided the remaining members abstain or are not against.

The enlargement of 28 November 1992 brought in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and the Secretariat keeps that date as ECO Day.

The machinery

Summits of heads of state or government meet biennially under Article IV. The Council of Ministers, composed of the foreign ministers, is the highest policy and decision making body and meets at least once a year by rotation in the territories of the members. The Council of Permanent Representatives is described by the Turkish foreign ministry as the members' ambassadors in Tehran together with the Iranian foreign ministry's director general for ECO affairs, convening monthly. The Regional Planning Council brings the heads of the national planning organisations to the headquarters at least once a year. The Secretary General is elected by the Council of Ministers for a single non-renewable term of three years and holds the rank and status of ambassador. Contributions to the centralised budget are paid in US dollars, set by the Council of Ministers with regard to capacity to pay and the prevailing United Nations scale of assessment.

Article X provides for specialized agencies and regional institutions. Those the Secretariat listed at the summit of July 2025 include the ECO Cultural Institute, the ECO Educational Institute, the ECO Science Foundation, the ECO Seed Association and the Parliamentary Assembly of ECO Member States. The articles of agreement of the ECO Trade and Development Bank took effect on 3 August 2005, after parliamentary approval by Iran, Pakistan and Türkiye; the United Nations registered them on 19 May 2008 under number 44939; the bank began operations in December 2008 from Istanbul, with representative offices at Tehran and Karachi. Azerbaijan joined it at the end of 2013, Afghanistan at the beginning of 2014, and the Kyrgyz Republic signed on 12 February 2015. Its unit of account is the ECO Unit, equal to one Special Drawing Right of the International Monetary Fund.

Trade, and the agreement that carries it

The ECO Trade Agreement was done at Islamabad on 17 July 2003, in English and Russian, with the English text prevailing in case of discrepancy, and it is deposited with the Secretary General. Its preamble carries the parties' own assessment of the problem, that intra-regional trade at that date constituted a negligible share of their total trade.

Article 4 sets the schedule. Tariffs come down to a highest slab of 15% within eight years, and within fifteen years for Afghanistan; the positive list of goods widens in eight equal annual stages to cover at least 80% of tariff lines; sensitive goods are held to 1% of six digit tariff lines. Article 39 brings the agreement into force thirty days after five governments deposit their instruments of ratification. It was concluded for an initial period of ten years and renews year by year unless a party gives notice of denunciation six months before it expires.

ECO Vision 2025 was approved by the 22nd Council of Ministers at Islamabad on 28 February 2017, and it states the aim of a free trade area.

Corridors

Transport is the file that recurs. The transport ministers adopted the Almaty Outline Plan for the Development of the Transport Sector in the ECO Region at Almaty in October 1993. An extraordinary summit at Ashgabat in March 1997 endorsed a Programme of Action for the ECO Decade of Transport and Communications. The ECO Transit Transport Framework Agreement followed in 1998 and established the Transit Transport Coordination Council to monitor it. The topics taken up under that agreement are the unglamorous ones: alignment of road and rail corridors, vehicle dimensions and weights, visa processes, road permits, harmonisation of customs procedures, third party motor insurance.

The June 2016 briefing lists the container routes and their lengths. Istanbul to Almaty runs 5,626 kilometres and had been operational since 2002. Bandar Abbas to Almaty runs 3,710 kilometres, with a first demonstration run on 17 October 2011. Islamabad to Tehran to Istanbul runs 6,543 kilometres, in scheduled operation since August 2010, taking about 14 days end to end at the end of 2014. The same document records that the working group had to settle transhipment fees alongside timetables and tariffs, which is what happens where rolling stock cannot continue across a frontier. A new line of about 700 kilometres joining Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran was inaugurated on 3 December 2014 to carry Central Asian freight south towards Bandar Abbas.

The Secretariat's transport directorate frames the region as landlocked members and transit members, and the ports of the second group are the access to the sea of the first.

Where the grouping is argued about

Article XIII's test has two limbs joined by and, or alternatively, so contiguity is sufficient and not necessary. That leaves the map doing less work than the name suggests. The organisation's own member states page places its membership in West and South Asia, the Caucasus and Central Asia; this catalogue files Azerbaijan and Türkiye under Europe and the rest under Asia, and the member records put five different subregions on the same roster.

Overlap with other groupings is heavy and the treaty anticipates it. Article III makes cooperation subject to the members' existing bilateral and international obligations. Every member record here also carries the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Six carry the Commonwealth of Independent States, six the Organization of Turkic States, and five the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. No two members share a currency.

Observer and dialogue partner status exist under Article XIV, granted by unanimous vote of the Council of Ministers, and the treaty leaves the nature and scope of both to that decision rather than defining either.