{"id":48303,"date":"2013-02-17T21:16:06","date_gmt":"2013-02-18T05:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=48303"},"modified":"2013-02-17T21:16:06","modified_gmt":"2013-02-18T05:16:06","slug":"is-turkey-leaving-the-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=48303","title":{"rendered":"Is Turkey Leaving The West?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.jewishpress.com\/indepth\/opinions\/is-turkey-leaving-the-west\/2013\/02\/12\/\">Daniel Pipes writes<\/a>: Recent steps taken by the Government of Turkey suggest it may be ready to ditch the NATO club of democracies for a Russian and Chinese gang of authoritarian states.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the evidence:<\/p>\n<p>Starting in 2007, Ankara applied three times unsuccessfully to join as a Guest Member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (or SCO, informally known as the Shanghai Five). Founded in 1996 by the Russian and Chinese governments, along with three (and in 2001 a fourth) former Soviet Central Asian states, the SCO has received minimal attention in the West, although it has grand security and other aspirations, including the possible creation of a gas cartel. More, it offers an alternative to the Western model, from NATO, to democracy, to displacing the U.S. dollar as reserve currency. After those three rejections, Ankara applied for \u201cDialogue Partner\u201d status in 2011. In June 2012, it won approval.<\/p>\n<p>One month later, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan reported about his saying to Russia\u2019s President Vladimir Putin, \u201cCome, accept us into the Shanghai Five [as a full member] and we will reconsider the European Union.\u201d Erdo\u011fan reiterated this idea on Jan. 25, noting stalled Turkish efforts to join the European Union (E.U.): \u201cAs the prime minister of 75 million people,\u201d he explained, \u201cyou start looking around for alternatives. That is why I told Mr. Putin the other day, \u2018Take us into the Shanghai Five; do it, and we will say goodbye to the E.U.\u2019 What\u2019s the point of stalling?\u201d He added that the SCO \u201cis much better, it is much more powerful [than the E.U.], and we share values with its members.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Jan. 31, the Foreign Ministry announced plans for an upgrade to \u201cObserver State\u201d at the SCO. On Feb. 3 Erdo\u011fan reiterated his earlier point, saying \u201cWe will search for alternatives,\u201d and praised the Shanghai group\u2019s \u201cdemocratization process\u201d while disparaging European \u201cIslamophobia.\u201d On Feb. 4, President Abdullah G\u00fcl pushed back, declaring that \u201cThe SCO is not an alternative to the E.U. \u2026 Turkey wants to adopt and implement E.U. criteria.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What does this all amount to?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Daniel Pipes writes: Recent steps taken by the Government of Turkey suggest it may be ready to ditch the NATO club of democracies for a Russian and Chinese gang of authoritarian states. Here is the evidence: Starting in 2007, Ankara &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=48303\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16759],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-turkey"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48304,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48303\/revisions\/48304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}