Ahead of his visit to New York to attend the UN General Assembly, Turkish President  Recep Tayyip Erdogan signaled that NATO-member Turkey is targeting membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a platform dominated by Russia and China. Once in the United States, Erdogan repeated the same message in an interview with PBS NewsHour Monday. Asked by Judy Woodruff how Turkey could reconcile its possible membership in the SCO (an organization whose members include China, Russia and — as of 2023 — Iran) and NATO, Erdogan replied that Turkey positioned itself as a global — rather than a Western or an Eastern — power. “The European Union has kept us, a strong country, at its gates for 52 years,” he said. “It is natural that we are looking at other alternatives.” 

Despite recurrent debates on whether Ankara should — or could — be a member of the SCO, seasoned Turkey-watchers would remember that Erdogan’s road to Shanghai started as a joke. As Al-Monitor reported back in 2013, Erdogan first sounded out the possibility in a TV program on July 25, 2012. “Jokingly, I said to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, 'You goad us from time to time by saying what business do you have in the EU? So let me goad you this time. Admit us into the Shanghai Five (as the SCO was called when founded in 1996), and we will review our position on the EU,'” Erdogan said. 

But when Erdogan repeated the same anecdote six months later, it had become a reality. Erdogan and Ahmet Davutoglu, his then-foreign minister and current political rival, had managed to obtain a dialogue partnership status in the group, which critics refer to as “the dictators’ club” or “Rogue NATO.” 

Davutoglu hailed the status as a “historic day,” saying that Turkey has declared its destiny the same as the SCO countries. In 2017, India and Pakistan finished accession and joined Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as full members. Iran is expected to become a member in 2023. Afghanistan and Mongolia have also expressed the intention to become full members. Azerbaijan and Armenia are dialogue partners, and Egypt just signed a memorandum of understanding to become one. Israel might be on the way. Successive enlargements have also changed the organization’s portfolio. The group, which had started as a means to have political exchange between Russia, China and its neighbors, has started addressing infrastructure and economic development, as well as cooperation against terrorism.