President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s words that they “aim to become a member” of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization during his visit to Uzbekistan continue to echo in the West.
WESTERN ANALYSTS: TURKEY WILL RUN ALARM BELTS IN THE USA
Turkey’s Shanghai target also disturbed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Stating that Shanghai will not contribute to global life, Scholz said that he is not satisfied with the developments.
Western security analysts said, “Turkey’s rapprochement with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will set off some alarm bells in Europe and the United States.”
PARTICIPATION OF UZBEKISTAN, INDIA AND PAKISTAN
At the summit held in Shanghai in 2001, Uzbekistan was included in the five-member mechanism as a new member, and on June 15, 2001, it announced the establishment of the SCO with the aim of increasing the level of cooperation.
The following year, Russia’s St. The leaders of 6 countries, who came together in St. Petersburg, signed the SCO Charter on July 7, 2002, and determined the goals, principles, structure and working methods of the organization and made it a part of international law.
The representatives of India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia attended the summit held in Nursultan city of Kazakhstan (then Astana) in July 2005 for the first time.
By 2007, while the SCO started more than 20 joint projects in the fields of transportation, energy and telecommunications, member countries started to conduct regular cooperation meetings in areas such as security, military, defense, foreign relations, economy, culture and banking.
At the summit held in Ufa, Russia in July 2015, the full membership processes of India and Pakistan were initiated. The two nuclear-armed countries completed the membership process on 9 July 2017.
With the participation of India, another major regional power after Russia and China joined the ranks of the SCO.
CHANGING BALANCES OF POWER AND SCO
In the process from Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 to the war against Ukraine in February, the organization gained critical importance in the field of security and economy in the Eurasian region.
The developments that led to a new confrontation between Russia and the West after the Cold War increased Moscow’s need for a security agreement on the Asian side that it could rely on.
The economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the West due to its actions in Crimea and Ukraine made it necessary for Moscow to deepen its cooperation with emerging economies such as China and India, which have large markets in Asia.
It is anticipated that Russia will seek to strengthen the strategic security umbrella created by the SCO in the coming years and to advance its economic cooperation potential.