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left-of-center2012

(34,195 posts)
Mon Nov 21, 2016, 12:42 PM Nov 2016

China would consider Turkish membership of security bloc

China said on Monday it was willing to consider any application from NATO-member Turkey to join a Russian and Chinese-led security bloc, after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said his country could join.
China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2001 ...

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Turkey was already a "dialogue partner" of the regional bloc and had for a long time closely cooperated with it.
China attached great importance to Turkey's wish to strengthen that cooperation, he told a news briefing.

"We are willing, together with other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and in accordance with the rules of its legal documents, to seriously study it on the basis of consensus consultation," Geng added, without elaborating.

Erdogan was quoted on Sunday as saying that Turkey did not need to join the European Union "at all costs" and could instead become part of the SCO.
Turkish membership of the bloc would nonetheless be likely to alarm Western allies and fellow NATO members.

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan speak Turkic languages, and Ankara signed up in 2013 as a "dialogue partner" saying it shared "the same destiny" as members of the bloc.
Mongolia, India, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan are observers, while Belarus, like Turkey, is a dialogue partner.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-turkey-idUSKBN13G0SS

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