Turkey mulls option to join Shanghai Pact instead of EU

ANKARA (AA) - The Turkish president’s recent hint that Turkey may consider joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) if the EU remains undecided over its accession process is being welcomed by influential members of the non-Western body.

In remarks made at a news briefing in Beijing Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China gives more importance to Turkey's wish to strengthen cooperation with the organization.

Geng said Turkey is a very important country for the region and it is an important “dialogue partner” for the SCO.

“We attach great importance to Turkey's wish for deepening of business cooperation with SCO,” he added.

Speaking to journalists at the end of his recent official tour to Pakistan and Uzbekistan, Erdogan had said Turkey was beginning to think about other blocs instead of the EU, especially the SCO.

Last week, Erdogan started his Asia visit with Pakistan, which is set to become a full member of the SCO at the organization's next summit in 2017. Later, the president went to Uzbekistan, a country which has been part of the SCO since 2001.

On his way back to Turkey, Erdogan said Turkey “should stop considering the EU membership” as an important matter, and spoke of the other strong option of SCO.

“Why Turkey shouldn’t be in the Shanghai Five? I said this to [Russian President] Putin, to [Kazakh President] Nazarbayev, to those who are in the Shanghai Five now,” he said on Sunday.

Turkey is already associated with the SCO since five years. It applied for “dialogue partnership” in SCO in 2011 and its status was approved in June 2012 at the SCO Heads of State Summit in Beijing.

Erdogan hinted his country may consider getting full membership in the largest non-Western organization in Eurasia. “It [the pact] would enable it [Turkey] to act with much greater ease,” he said.

- Economic advantages

If Turkey became a full member of the SCO, it could gain a lot financially. According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, Turkey's exports to six SCO countries amounted to $7.7 billion in 2015, which equals to five percent of its total exports.

Also, Turkey imported $47.4 billion dollars from the same countries last year, which equals to 23 percent of its total imports.​

The SCO aims to boost economic cooperation and to increase regional economic initiatives. Recently, the organization announced the integration of China and Russia-led Silk Road Economic Belt during the Kazakhstan summit in 2013.

The SCO adopted its “program of multilateral economic and trade cooperation” among member states on Sept. 23, 2003. The organization also established an interbank consortium on Oct. 26, 2005, and a business council on June 14, 2006, to facilitate the implementation of the program.

On June 7, 2012, China pledged to provide another $10 billion loan under the auspices of the SCO for the development of projects and it is still a leading trading partner of Russia and all Central Asian countries.

According to the SCO’s latest official figures, after establishing the SCO, in the period of 2001–2011, trade volume between China and other SCO members increased almost 10 times, from $12.1 billion to $113.4 billion.

- What is SCO?

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is dominated by two influential countries China and Russia. The other full members are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The territories of the six member states consist of 1.5 billion people, which equals to a quarter of the world's population. In addition to the six member states, the SCO has two new acceding members, India and Pakistan; four observer nations – Mongolia, Iran, Afghanistan and Belarus – and six dialogue partners, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

The intergovernmental organization, SCO, known also as the Shanghai Pact, was founded in Shanghai in 2001. Initially, the organization had been founded in 1996 and had five members except Uzbekistan to strengthen regional, political, economic, and military ties.

The SCO bills itself as a classic intergovernmental organization based on the principles of “sovereign equality, territorial integrity of states and inviolability of their borders, non-interference into their internal affairs and peaceful settlement of disputes between the member states through consultations and negotiations”.

The SCO’s supreme body, which determines policies, is the Council of Heads of State. It holds its regular meetings once a year, chaired and hosted on a rotational basis by each state, and decisions in all SCO bodies are adopted through consensus.

The Shanghai Pact admitted India and Pakistan as full-fledged members in 2015, during the organization’s summit held in Russia’s Ufa city. The acceptance process for the two countries is expected to end by the next meeting in Astana city in Kazakhstan in 2017.

It was formed as a “confidence-building forum” to demilitarize borders and to work on security cooperation in 1996; however, the organization later enlarged its goals and started joint military exercises, fighting terrorism and intelligence sharing among member states.

Over the past few years, the organization’s activities have expanded to include increased military cooperation; so far, they have organized six joint military exercises across borders of member countries.