Clarifying the Role of Geopolitical Opportunities in Developing the South-North Transit Corridor on Increase of Iran's Convergence with the Member Countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Today, one of the positions that can play a significant role in the geopolitical and geoeconomic importance of Iran is a crossing position, and in this regard, the geographical position of the south and north of Iran with geopolitical, economic, security, access, and regional communication capacities and opportunities. and international, has been qualified for transit functions at different national and international levels, which has not been properly considered until now. Using the descriptive-analytical and survey method, the current research has studied the role of geopolitical opportunities for the development of the South-North transit corridor on increasing the convergence of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The statistical population of this research consists of experts in the field of geopolitics and international relations. Its sample size was estimated to be 40 people based on Cochran's model. The analysis of the research findings was done based on the numerical taxonomy model in Matlab software. The results of the research showed that the geopolitical opportunities for the development of the North-South corridor can be highly convergent for China and Russia, convergent for Tajikistan, India and Uzbekistan, least convergent for Pakistan and Kazakhstan, and non-convergent for Kyrgyzstan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]