Turkmen Terzi
Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan has several times since 2013 announced his intention to take Türkiye into the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO).
He has demonstrated his seriousness by joining the 22nd meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand city on September 15-16.
Erdogan knows that the SCO is not an economic or political organisation that can be an alternative to the EU, but his ultimate goal is to turn Türkiye away from western democracy and to establish a dictatorial regime wherein he is able to cover up his corruption.
The SCO was founded in 1996 by the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan to disarm the border regions and encourage regional co-operation under the name “Shanghai Five”.
Uzbekistan joined the organisation in 2011, and India and Pakistan became full members in 2017. Iran was announced as the ninth member state of the SCO in 2021, while Türkiye, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Nepal, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar have become Dialogue Partners.
Afghanistan, Mongolia and Belarus obtained observer status in the SCO.
Türkiye applied to join the SCO as a guest member in 2007, 2009 and 2010 but failed to receive a favourable response, with Ankara then applying for a “Dialogue Partnership Status” on March 23, 2011.
The SCO finally approved Türkiye’s application to become a Dialogue Partner at the Summit of the Heads of State of the SCO held in Beijing, China on June 6-7, 2012.
Türkiye is a Nato country and is competing with China and Russia in Central Asia. It appears that Türkiye’s full membership status in the SCO is not realistic in the short term, however, Türkiye has a unique place among the dialogue partners in the SCO as Turkish people share cultural, historical, linguistic and ethnic ties with the Central Asian States of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and these countries are full members.
Since Turkey has slowly turned its attention away from European countries, the AKP’s foreign policy has largely been redirected toward Africa and Central Asia. Erdogan has been on more visits to Africa than any other non-African leader, in the same way, Erdogan frequently visits Central Asia.
Erdogan is no longer pursuing Türkiye’s traditional secular foreign policy in Central Asia as these countries were part of the Soviet Union and their leaders established secular states following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
However, the strong leaders of Central Asian Turkic countries have either died or are no longer in power, as a result, the region has grown increasingly susceptible to Erdogan’s interference.
Türkiye has strong business ties with all the SCO members but the SCO is neither a military defence alliance analogous to Nato nor a political and economic alliance such as is the case with the EU.
The SCO’s activities predominantly remain at the declaratory level to diffuse potential border conflicts.
SCO’s strong members China and Russia have always been keen to establish close ties with the strategically located Türkiye, hoping to keep this Nato member by their side.
However, these powers compete with Türkiye in the Central Asia region for economic and political power. Moreover, Türkiye’s criticism of the Beijing government over the crackdown on Uighurs has led to some degree of tension between the two countries. Erdogan’s main aim is to create strong ties with Turkic countries in Central Asia but not to collaborate with Moscow or Beijing in the region.
At the same time, Erdogan remains serious about Türkiye’s bid for SCO membership to continue to implement his plans in his country with an iron fist as SCO countries do.
The Star