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Turkey officially applied to the SCO for “dialogue partnership status" in March 2011, which was approved at the Council of Heads of State Summit in Beijing a few months later. Now, Turkey is waiting for the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the SCO and Turkey as the third “dialogue partner,” following Belarus and Sri Lanka.
Turkey Renews Plea to Join Shanghai Cooperation Organization | The Diplomat
China welcomes Turkish bid for SCO membership | European Dialogue
Turkey Renews Plea to Join Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Turkish PM Erdogan has once again said that Turkey wants to join the SCO. This is just part of Turkey’s larger pivot to Asia.
By
Zachary Keck for The Diplomat
December 01, 2013
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During a trip to Russia in November, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan once again said that Ankara would abandon its quest to join the European Union if it was offered full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
According to Turkish newspapers, Erdogan made the comments during a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The impetus for Erdogan’s remarks was Putin’s response to a question about Ukraine recently pulling out of talks over an EU trade pact.
“We will ask Turkey what we can do. Turkey has great experience in EU talks,” Putin said sarcastically, referring to Ankara’s long and checkered history of seeking EU membership.
Without skipping a beat, Erdogan responded: “You are right. Fifty years of experience is not easy. Allow us into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and save us from this trouble.”
Given the context the comment was made in, it might be easy to dismiss the comment as a lighthearted joke. However, this is not the first time that Erdogan has said Turkey would gladly forgo EU membership if it was invited to join the SCO as a full member.
Indeed, Erdogan made waves in January of this year
when he stated, that “If we get into the SCO, we will say good-bye to the European Union. The Shanghai Five [former name of the SCO] is better — much more powerful. Pakistan wants in. India wants in as well. If the SCO wants us, all of us will become members of this organization.”
He added, “The Shanghai Five is better and more powerful, and we have common values with them.”
This
followed comments he made in the summer of last year when, again speaking with Putin, Erdogan said Ankara would like to join the SCO. Shortly after making these initial comments, his office wrote them off as a joke. However, he has now repeated it no less than three times.
The SCO is an international organization created in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. It was born out of the Shanghai Five group, which consisted of the same nations minus Uzbekistan.
Alongside these permanent members, the SCO also has an increasing number of dialogue partners and observers. Last year, Turkey joined the SCO as a dialogue partner during a summit in Beijing. Belarus and Sri Lanka are also dialogue partners while Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia enjoy observer status at the SCO.
The SCO mainly focuses on common security challenges like anti-terrorism and separation movements. For a number of years now, China has also sought to strengthen economic cooperation within the SCO. These moves have generally been resisted by Russia, which is steadily losing influence to Beijing in Central Asia and already belongs to the economically oriented Eurasian Economic Community with all five Central Asian nations (Uzbekistan is currently suspended from the group).
Consistent with the Shanghai part of its name, China is generally seen as a more enthusiastic backer of the SCO. That Erdogan has generally directed his pleas to join the SCO toward Putin likely reflects the Turkish prime minister’s sentiment that Moscow is the main obstacle to Ankara gaining entry into the SCO. In fact, whereas Turkey and China have some basis of cooperation in Central Asia, Ankara and Moscow has historically competed for influence in the region. Furthermore, although Turkey does suffer from the same kind of separatist movements that the SCO preoccupies itself with, Ankara is most likely seeking to advance its economic interests by joining the SCO.
Whatever the reasons behind Erdogan’s SCO bid, it is just one of a number of recent examples that suggest Turkey is embarking on its own Asian pivot of sorts.
As previously reported, Turkey—which is a NATO member—recently announced that it will purchase an air and missile defense system from a Chinese defense company that is under U.S. sanctions. Similarly, Sino-Turkish
bilateral trade has grown from US$1.4 billion in 2000 to over US$24 billion last year.
Turkey has also been expanding its relationship with other Asian powers. For example, a Japanese firm won a bid to construct the Marmaray tunnel, one of Erdogan’s most prized projects. Japanese PM Shinzo Abe visited Turkey in October to attend to the official opening of the tunnel. Abe also visited Ankara back in May when he and Erdogan officially upgraded bilateral ties to a
strategic partnership. While in Turkey this spring, Abe also concluded a US$22 billion deal in which a Japanese and French firm will jointly build Turkey a second nuclear plant.
Relations between Turkey and South Korea have also been growing steadily. In fact, in March of last year, the two sides
signed a free trade agreement. When the agreement came into effect this year, South Korea became the first Asian nation to have a free trade agreement with Turkey. They are already
examining ways to expand the FTA by including services and investment.
Australia
hopes to be the second country in Asia to conclude an FTA with Turkey.
China welcomes Turkish bid for SCO membership | European Dialogue
China welcomes Turkish bid for SCO membership
By Sman Erol
Turkey's aspirations for membership in the Russian and Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) might materialize as the organization moves towards admitting new members, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a special talk with Today's Zaman.
“The SCO is working on improving the administrative and financial basis for new members. The member states of the SCO will meet and make a decision together on the applications proposed by states that are interested in joining,” said a senior Chinese official on Friday.
In addition, he said the SCO observes the principle of openness and values the partnership with observer countries, including Turkey as a dialogue partner, adding that “the SCO is mapping out detailed cooperative measures.”
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The Chinese government's statement came after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced in a TV interview last week that Turkey might seek membership in the SCO, given the stalled negotiations with the European Union that Turkey has struggled for 40 years to join.
"I recently said to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin: ‘Take us into the Shanghai Five. Take us and we will say goodbye to the EU.' What's the point of stalling?” Erdoğan said, referring to the SCO by its previous name.
There has been no official statement on the issue from the Russian government.
Acknowledging for the first time in public Erdoğan's comment that “the SCO is much better than the EU,” which led to a wide range of debate and discussion, Chinese analysts say Ankara's decision to move toward the SCO matches the actual development and power of Turkey in the region. That is, Turkey can choose to go for the SCO or for the EU.
“Since the EU has not accepted Turkey, Turkey can search for a new way. Strengthening the relationship with the SCO will help Turkey to realize its strategic goal for 2023,” Professor Wang Lincong, director of the international relations division of the Institute of West Asian and African Studies and secretary-general of the Gulf Research Center, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said in an interview with Today's Zaman.
In 2023 Turkey will mark the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Turkish Republic. It is also a critical date that Turks have set to achieve their strategic mission for a competitive economy, a proactive foreign policy and becoming a regional energy hub, all of which will affect Turkey's role in the world.
According to Lincong, the EU has shown by its treatment of Turkey's bid for membership that it still cannot get beyond its narrow, exclusive and inward-looking characteristics and does not realize the importance of the acceptance of Turkey.
“Given the deep financial crisis in Europe, the members of the EU should know that they need Turkey much more; it is a chance for the development of the EU,” Lincong said.
Commenting on the importance Turkey attaches to the SCO with its recent announcement, Lincong said that for the past 10 years, Turkey has become more open and pays more attention to the East under its policy of balanced diplomacy, adding, “Turkey's eastward-oriented strategy has created broad prospects for the development of the country.”
The SCO is an intergovernmental security organization composed of six member countries: China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and which some say also has a strategic goal of ending the global hegemony of the US, Turkey's NATO ally.
Turkey officially applied to the SCO for “dialogue partnership status" in March 2011, which was approved at the Council of Heads of State Summit in Beijing a few months later. Now, Turkey is waiting for the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the SCO and Turkey as the third “dialogue partner,” following Belarus and Sri Lanka.
