Moscow does not Believe in Tears

In a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin held in St. Petersburg on Nov. 22, after the fourth meeting of the High-Level Cooperation Council (ÜDİK) between Turkey and Russia, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Putin, "Include us in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization [SCO] and relieve us of the pain of the European Union."
 
When Putin said, "Russia is eager to make use of Turkey's experience with the European bloc," Erdoğan said: "Well said. Turkey has 50 years of experience. The prime minister also added: "Besides, we are also ready to sign free trade agreements with countries in Eurasia. As I said before, we place importance on the SCO."
 
Turkish history is connected to its Western affiliation. For thousands of years, the Turks have chosen the Western path as their foreign policy route. As the heirs of the Byzantine Empire, the Ottomans moved westwards both geographically and diplomatically. Turkey became a southeastern European country, and the Republic of Turkey adopted integration with the West as its main principle. Ankara equated integration with the EU with modernization, democratization and more developed welfare. Although Turkish people and politics have become tired of integration with the EU, Turkey's face has always been directed towards the West. The Turks were interested in Asian, Middle Eastern and African countries for business and historic reasons.
 
The SCO is a mutual security organization aiming for the integration of member states mainly in the fields of security and intelligence. This is why Turkey cannot consider the SCO an alternative to the EU. It can only complement the EU. Some of the commanders standing trial in the Ergenekon case listed reasons why Turkey should join the SCO. Moreover, the Ergenekon supporters also argued that Turkey should abandon its EU bid and move closer to Russia and Iran. However, these are only their wishes, and they are not able to implement them.
 
Turkey has never aimed for integration with the SCO, cutting its ties with the EU and the West. And it is not very likely that Turkey will make the West -- which is the main character in this story -- jealous by looking at the SCO. This is why we should not expect Russia to accept Turkey's ploy of joining the SCO to attract the EU's attention. This is like the name of Russian director Vladimir Menshov's 1979 film, "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears."
 
Actually, Erdoğan's more important words in Shanghai went unnoticed. His statement that Turkey could sign a free trade agreement with other countries in Eurasia is much more realistic than an agreement with Shanghai. We need to focus on this. Turkey aims to expand its international trade volume with Russia to $100 billion in 2020 from its current figure of $35 billion. Ankara is considering a customs union in order to expand its exports to Russia and develop its ties with Central Asia.
 
Erdoğan's trade ambitions cannot be contained. Turkey contains a large share of the production capacity between China and Italy. And Turkey currently conducts the sixth-largest trade with the African continent.
 
As such, it's important to take Ankara's words on a customs union seriously.