Two Months After Hosting NATO, Erdoğan Proposes Joining the SCO
Less than two months after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government hosted the NATO summit — an event framed as proof of Turkey's pivotal role in transatlantic security — the president proposed full Turkish membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. The Conversation Canada describes that bloc as China- and Russia-led, as having included Iran since 2023, and as projecting an alternative, non-western vision of international order. Hosting one club's summit and bidding for another's membership is awkward only if you assume countries must pick a side.
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The essay rejects the framing of a west-to-east pivot. It argues that partially overlapping and competing international orders now co-exist, each with its own institutions and rules, and that Turkey is asserting autonomy by moving across their boundaries.
A state doesn't have to choose blocs for its choices to read as choices. Turkey has belonged to NATO since 1952 and remains an EU candidate — which is precisely what makes the SCO proposal legible as a message rather than a membership application.