Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev arrives at Qingdao Liuting International Airport. (Photo: VCG)

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani have arrived in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong Province, on Friday afternoon.

The leaders are in Qingdao to attend the upcoming 18th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which is scheduled from Saturday to Sunday. 

It will be the first SCO summit since its expansion, when India and Pakistan were accepted as full members at the Astana summit in Kazakhstan in 2017.

Leaders of the eight SCO member states and the four observer states, as well as heads of international organizations will attend the summit to exchange their views on cooperation.

The SCO's full members are China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. Its observer states are Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia.