China is willing to consider any application from NATO-member Turkey to join a Russian and Chinese-led security bloc, the Shanghai Pact, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said after Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan said his country could join.
China, Russia and four Central Asian nations – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), also known as the Shanghai 5, in 2001 as a regional security bloc to fight threats posed by radical Islam and drug trafficking from neighboring Afghanistan.
Erdoğan said Turkey should not be “fixated” on the idea of joining the European Union and should look at other opportunities, such as the Shanghai Pact.
“Turkey should first of all feel relaxed about the EU and not be fixated” about joining it, Erdoğan told reporters on the presidential plane returning from Uzbekistan, daily Hürriyet reported.