Erdoğan: Turkey considers Shanghai organization an alternative to EU

[MfA_]

http://cdncms.todayszaman.com/todayszaman/2013/01/25/ert.jpg

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has turned the big wheel of geopolitics in a late-night TV show, calling the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) a more promising alternative for Turkey to membership of the EU. Erdogan, who raised the idea of an SCO membership bid for the second time now since his visit to Moscow in July 2012, appeared much more determined than last summer. “The EU does not want to have a Muslim country inside,“ Erdogan stated in an interview with the Turkish news channel TV24. “Of course, if things develop in such a negative way, then as a prime minister of 75 million you start with different searches,“ he said, adding that “the Shanghai Five is better, much stronger“.

Commonly referred to in Turkey by its old name “Shanghai Five,“ the SCO was founded in 1996 by China, Russia and the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. When Uzbekistan joined in 2001, the “Shanghai Five“ became SCO. The world’s biggest regional organisation in terms of the population of its member countries aims to deal with security and terror threats. It also started planning common oil and gas projects within the “SCO energy club”.

Last summer, Erdogan recalled a half-joking conversation he had had with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin: “You tease us, saying: what is Turkey doing in the EU? Now I tease you: take us into the Shanghai Five and we will forget about the EU“. Erdogan’s appearence on TV24on 25 January was much less on the light side. The Turkish prime minister dropped a “geopolitical bomb,” commented the renowned columnist Cengiz Candar. Erdogan spoke his mind, Candar claimed. With Erdogan looking to prolong his political career as president of Turkey after 2014, “joining the Shanghai Five is a possibility not to be underestimated,“ he wrote.

http://www.europolitics.info/external-policies/erdogan-shanghai-cooperation-organisation-an-alternative-to-eu-art347569-41.html

[American_Hispanist]

the EU is a sinking ship anyway.

[legolasbozo]

old style turkish movies cliche scene, wealthy man come to his ex-girlfriend's father office,

-once upon a time there was a poor but honourable young man...

When i heard that news, i felt like that. Because this european hypocricity is disgusting me, should disgust every person who feel Turk, i have a dream, one day we would have a courageous politician, a real man and just terminate this Eu accession policies. Don't care anything but our honour.

[Hayalet]

As if the SCO would welcome Turkey with open arms after seeing Erdogan's policy on Syria.

[Partizan]

I always think that Turkish foreign policy should be based on three things.

1.Pan-Turkism
2.Third Worldism
3.Machiavellianism

Jumping into Russian-Chinese imperialism while escaping from evil Euro-Atlantic alliance is not a smart thing. I think if seven Turkic states would for a strong unity, it would lead unaligned nations against both East(Russia-China-Iran) and West(EU and the US). We should try to rescue Central Asian Turkic states from SCO and CIS while getting ourselves out of NATO.

[Hayalet]

I always think that Turkish foreign policy should be based on three things.

1.Pan-Turkism
2.Third Worldism
3.Machiavellianism
1. I agree with the idea, but disagree with the term. "Pan-" nationalisms have always been associated with irredentism or separatism. What we are talking about here is cooperation between already independent states, which is nobody else's business.

2. Why? Turkey is not Yugoslavia. Turkey has been ruled by anti-intellectual populists for most of the last 60 years. Make them adopt a third worldist political paradigm and they would turn Turkey itself into an average third world country in no time, rather than do any good for either Turkey or the third world.

3. That is arbitrary. For example, Erdogan probably thinks he is being a Machiavellian genius playing the SCO against the EU here. Unfortunately for him, other world leaders are smarter than his voters and can see through the nonsense.

[Partizan]

1. I agree with the idea, but disagree with the term. "Pan-" nationalisms have always been associated with irredentism or separatism. What we are talking about here is cooperation between already independent states, which is nobody else's business.

2. Why? Turkey is not Yugoslavia. Turkey has been ruled by anti-intellectual populists for most of the last 60 years. Make them adopt a third worldist political paradigm and they would turn Turkey itself into an average third world country in no time, rather than do any good for either Turkey or the third world.

3. That is arbitrary. For example, Erdogan probably thinks he is being a Machiavellian genius playing the SCO against the EU here. Unfortunately for him, other world leaders are smarter than his voters and can see through the nonsense.

1. Actually I am for a collaboration and if possible, a land unity with 7 Turkic states at first. About irredentism, I should quote my favourite political leader, Gökçe Fırat:


TÜRKSOLU: Balkanlar’da da hak mı talep ediyorsunuz?

GÖKÇE FIRAT: Bugün için, hak talep etmeyeceğiz demiyoruz. Ama hak talep edeceğiz de demiyoruz. Bunu gelecek dönem ortaya koyacaktır.

http://www.turksolu.org/272/firat272.htm

2. I am talking about my ideal government, of course it wouldn't go with our current corrupted politicians, who are in both left and right.

3. China came as a power with Machiavellian politics, at first being an ally to mother Russia, later flirting with Uncle Sam and now having offish collaboration with both. Same could be said for Tito's Yugoslavia.

[Onur]

Russia never accepts Turkey in an organization focused in central Asia because we are direct competitors of them, never allies, never been throughout history.

Erdogan is just showing his own "political intelligence" (lack of) with this half-joke statements.

A political alliance between Russia and Turkey for central Asian issues are even less probability than Turan union. I mean, resurrection of Hunnic empire is easier to realize than that :)