Editor\u2019s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah\u2019s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.<\/p>\n
<\/span>WASHINGTON \u2013 Turkey is no closer to membership in the European Union now than when it first applied in 1959 and instead it is looking eastward to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization out of total exasperation, according to a report in Joseph Farah\u2019s G2 Bulletin.<\/p>\n The SCO is comprised of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.<\/p>\n Turkey, which is a long-standing member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, still holds out faint hope of joining the E.U.<\/p>\n The reality, however, is that fellow NATO members Germany, France and Greece have opposed Ankara\u2019s membership, even though Turkey can ship its products duty-free to E.U. nations under a prior arrangement but people sending the products still need to file for a visa.<\/p>\n Turkey hopes to allow its citizens to enter into E.U. countries under the Schengen Treaty, which allows E.U. members to travel among the E.U. member countries without a visa.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is one issue that has been on top of our agenda still pending to be resolved,\u201d said Egemen Bagis, Turkey\u2019s Minister for E.U. relations, \u201cthe Schengen visa preventing the free travel of Turkish citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not fair,\u201d he said. \u201cTurkey is the only E.U. candidate country, whose citizens are still subject to visas. Turkey is the only country that had formed a Customs Union with the E.U. without becoming a member. The products of Turkish businessmen can freely flow into the Union, but the owners of those products cannot freely travel.\u201d<\/p>\n Bagis said that Turkey still seeks membership. However, the E. U. \u201cactually wants to forget us. We are not the ones that are undecided \u2013 the European Union is. Whereas, if they would just reveal their true intentions to us, we would be at ease. We could just look after our own business and go our own way. The European Union needs to stop stalling us.\u201d<\/p>\n Turkey\u2019s total exasperation recently was exhibited by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.<\/p>\n \u201cI told Russian President (Vladimir) Putin, \u2018You should include us in the Shanghai Five and we will say farewell to the European Union.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Separately, Erdogen let his feelings be known that the SCO \u201cis better and more powerful, and we have common values with them. We told them \u2018if you say come, we will.\u2019 Pakistan wants to join, as does India. They have also made requests. We could all join together. In terms of population and markets, the organization significantly surpasses the European Union in every way.\u201d<\/p>\n Some observers believe Erdogan is using the SCO as leverage to get into the E.U. Others aren\u2019t so sure. They point to the fact that Erdogan has made such statements in the past.<\/p>\n Given the E.U.\u2019s economic problems, Erdogan may be looking to the developing markets such as China and India for future opportunities. Turkey\u2019s membership would especially be an asset to China and Russia, which would have greater access to Western technology as a result of Turkey being a NATO member.<\/p>\n For Turkey, this arrangement also would be of political benefit since it would be able to reassert its influence in a fast-expanding market of Central and East Asian countries, where Turkey under the Ottoman Empire asserted great influence.<\/p>\n Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah\u2019s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.<\/p>\n For the complete report and full immediate access to Joseph Farah\u2019s G2 Bulletin, subscribe now.<\/p>\n via Turkey looking at EU alternative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Editor\u2019s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah\u2019s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports. WASHINGTON \u2013 Turkey is no closer to membership […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":38128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146,178,213,42,1547],"tags":[1548],"class_list":["post-65033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china","category-kazakhstan","category-kyrgyzstan","category-russia","category-tajikistan","tag-sco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}