Türkiye’s aspirations to become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) have been deemed incompatible with its current membership in NATO by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended an Eurasian mutual defense group summit last week, where Ankara expressed interest in further developing ties with the SCO and its founding members, Russia and China. During a recent NATO leaders’ summit in the US, Türkiye expressed interest in joining the SCO as a permanent member.
Peskov explained to journalists that there are certain contradictions between Turkey’s commitments as a NATO member and its position on fundamental issues concerning the worldview formulated in the founding documents of the SCO. While the expansion of the SCO is of interest to many nations, there is no specific timeline for accepting new members. Russia remains open for attempts to reach agreements based on a certain worldview with Türkiye as the country maintains a neutral stance on the Ukraine conflict.
The SCO was established in 2001 and consists of ten full members: Russia, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus. The organization’s key pledge is not to seek the improvement of their own national security at the expense of other parties, which stands in contrast to NATO policy, as per its critics.