Turkey’s Deeper East Ties Not a Break With West, Erdogan Says

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pushed back against suggestions that Ankara’s growing engagement with Eastern powers signals a departure from its Western partnerships. Speaking to journalists aboard his plane on Wednesday after returning from a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Kyrgyzstan, Erdogan said Turkey’s interest in joining the bloc should not be read as a rejection of the West.

“Turkey’s membership perspective in the organization does not mean a break from a bloc or turning our backs on the West,” he said, reiterating Ankara’s long-stated goal of becoming a full SCO member. The ten-member grouping includes Russia, China, India, Iran, and several Central Asian states, and has often been viewed as a potential counterweight to U.S. influence, though its agenda remains loosely defined.

During the summit, Erdogan held a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the two leaders discussing further cooperation on nuclear energy. On the Ukraine conflict, Erdogan said both he and Putin shared the expectation that the war would end peacefully as soon as possible. He also stressed the need for a permanent mechanism to protect commercial shipping in the Black Sea, where recent attacks have raised concerns about a repeat of the earlier grain crisis.

Turkey brokered a landmark grain deal in 2022 that allowed Ukrainian grain exports to resume and facilitated Russian food and fertilizer shipments. That agreement, which Moscow exited a year later, had been vital for global food supplies, particularly for countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Erdogan warned that preventing a resurgence of such a crisis would be beneficial for all sides.