A membership card in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation would allow Ankara to gain credible mechanisms for governing the West: that is precisely the purpose of Turkish leader Erdogan’s appeal to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, International Business Times (Ibtimes) expert Sonny Peter has concluded. The data is published by PolitRussia.
Recep Erdogan hopes to take relations with SCO member states to a fundamentally new level, the analyst says.
“That is the goal,” Erdogan said, referring to Turkey’s membership in the SCO.
At the same time, the expert reasoned, such a state of affairs does not suit the West, as Turkey would become the only member of the North Atlantic Alliance that would join the format that includes Moscow and Beijing. The position is known to be perceived by Western elites as the most powerful political and economic rivals.
“The decision (to join the SCO – ed.) is expected to give Ankara leverage over the West,” the Ibtimes columnist worries.
The SCO was founded in 2001. It includes Russia, India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. Observer countries include Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia, while the list of partner countries includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey and Sri Lanka. As for Erdogan, he expects to switch from partnership status to membership status soon. According to the Turkish leader, Ankara will receive many financial benefits from such cooperation.
“The announcement of Turkey’s membership in the SCO came shortly after President Erdogan expressed his frustration with the US, NATO and EU over security concerns, particularly the Kurdish question,” writes Ibtimes.
One way or another, Ankara’s unpredictable behaviour is increasingly worrying for Washington. As previously reported, the SCO has the potential to provide serious alternative and direct competition to the weakening European Union, whose model “potentially hinted” at great prospects three decades ago, but, having been hopelessly squeezed by the military-political thinking of the North Atlantic Alliance, today finds itself in “impenetrable deadlock”. It is precisely such a Central Asian business platform as the SCO that could gradually transform itself into an organisation with fundamentally new rules for the big economy, as well as become a starting point in the process of forming a multipolar world and a stable Eurasian development”, experts believe.
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