Erdoğan says closer ties with SCO would not mean break with the West

02.09.2026

By Turkish Minute

Source:https://www.turkishminute.com/2026/09/02/erdogan-says-closer-ties-with-sco-would-not-mean-break-with-the-west/

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey could seek to take its relations with the China- and Russia-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to a higher level, insisting that possible full membership would not mean turning away from NATO or the West, the state-run TRT Haber reported.

“Turkey’s membership perspective does not mean breaking away from one bloc or turning its back on the West,” Erdoğan told reporters on his return flight from Kyrgyzstan, where he attended an SCO summit in Bishkek on Tuesday.

“Our goal is to increase our own weight with a 360-degree vision,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks.

Turkey, a NATO member since 1952 and a longtime candidate for European Union membership, has had dialogue partner status in the SCO since 2012. Erdoğan attended this year’s summit as a guest of honor at the invitation of Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov.

“The Bishkek summit was a concrete demonstration of our determination to diversify our country’s economic, political and strategic options,” Erdoğan said.

He described Turkey as a country capable of maintaining balanced relations with both East and West, saying its strategic position and growing economy offered opportunities across a region stretching from China and Central Asia to Russia and South Asia.

“It is possible for us to take our relations with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to a higher level in the coming period,” he said.

Erdoğan’s remarks echoed his speech at the summit a day earlier, when he called the SCO a “rising star” and an indispensable part of an emerging multipolar order.

“The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which represents approximately 4 billion people and $35 trillion in gross domestic product, has become one of the indispensable elements of the multipolar order over the past 25 years,” he said.

Erdoğan said Ankara viewed the organization as supporting and complementing the United Nations and claimed that its structure was compatible with Turkey’s multidimensional foreign policy.

“We will strive to advance our cooperation in every field with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which we see as a rising star,” he said.

He identified energy security, transportation corridors and regional connectivity as priority areas, saying Turkey could play a key role in connecting SCO countries with Western markets.

The SCO was founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, initially with a focus on regional security and cooperation against terrorism, separatism and extremism. Its agenda has since expanded to include trade, energy, transportation and political coordination.

The organization now has 10 full members: China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus.

Turkey was accepted as a dialogue partner in 2012. According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Ankara seeks cooperation with the organization in areas including counterterrorism, transnational crime, energy and regional connectivity.

Turkey also became the first nonmember country to hold the rotating chairmanship of the SCO Energy Club in 2017.

Erdoğan first explicitly raised full membership after attending the organization’s 2022 summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Asked at the time whether Turkey intended to join, he said, “Of course. That is the goal.”

No formal accession process followed, and Turkey remains outside the organization’s decision-making structure.

At the SCO summit in Tianjin in 2025, member states decided to merge the organization’s separate observer and dialogue partner categories into a single “SCO partner” status. The Turkish Foreign Ministry, however, continues to list Turkey as one of 15 dialogue partners as the new arrangement is implemented.

Ankara has long presented its ties with the SCO as part of a broader effort to diversify its diplomatic and economic relationships rather than as an alternative to NATO or the EU. The Foreign Ministry made the same argument as early as 2013, saying Turkey’s cooperation with the organization was not an alternative to its Western alliances.

Erdoğan’s renewed reference to membership comes as Turkey continues to balance its NATO commitments with close economic and diplomatic ties to Russia and expanding trade and investment relations with China.

During the Bishkek summit, he had bilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as the leaders of Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.