Opinion

The caption and the guest list: What the West’s SCO coverage cannot explain about Türkiye

Published

04.09.2026 14:27

Harici.com.tr

Thomas Karat, behavioral analyst

The photograph that Western agencies distributed from Bishkek arrived with its meaning already fixed. Above an image of the Kyrgyz president escorting China’s Xi Jinping past an honor guard, the caption read COUNTER US POWER. The image itself showed a familiar diplomatic ritual, two heads of state walking a red carpet. The caption supplied what the image did not: an adversary, a purpose, and the direction in which a Western audience was meant to orient its concern. The gap between the neutral picture and the loaded words is a useful place to begin, because it is where the framing of the entire summit was decided before a single line of analysis was written.

On Sept. 1 the Shanghai Cooperation Organization marked its twenty-fifth anniversary in the Kyrgyz capital, with ten member states, more than a dozen heads of government, and the secretary-general of the United Nations among the guests. Most European and North American outlets carried a single Agence France-Presse dispatch, which described the bloc as one that seeks to be a counterinfluence to the West. France 24 reported that the Russian and Chinese leaders had traveled to Central Asia to counter Western influence. British coverage of an earlier session of the same body called it a secretive summit of an “axis of upheaval.” In each formulation the West occupies the grammatical center of a meeting it did not attend. The organization is assigned no purpose that can be stated without reference to Washington and Brussels. It is defined entirely as a reaction to them.

Türkiye is the hole in the caption

The framing meets its first and largest obstacle in the guest list, and specifically in the presence of a NATO member at the table. Türkiye holds the status of dialogue partner in the organization, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has attended its summits in person. A Western reader told that the SCO is an axis assembled against his alliance is not encouraged to ask why a founding member of that alliance keeps a seat in it. The same AFP dispatch that calls the bloc a counterinfluence to the West records, several paragraphs below its lead, that the organization now counts fifteen dialogue partners including Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Türkiye belongs to NATO. Saudi Arabia and Qatar host the forward headquarters of United States Central Command and the largest American air base in the region. An organization built to oppose the West does not assemble this membership, and a caption that calls it one survives only for readers who do not reach the paragraph that contradicts it.

Türkiye’s position is the part of the picture that Western coverage is least equipped to interpret, because the prevailing map allows for only two teams. Ankara is not choosing the SCO over NATO. It is doing something the two-team model cannot represent, treating the organization as a venue to be worked, neither joining it nor shunning it. A state that keeps its treaty commitments in the Atlantic while cultivating standing in a Eurasian security forum is hedging against a future in which the Atlantic order no longer sets the terms alone. That behavior is legible from Istanbul and largely illegible from the outlets that produced the Bishkek caption, which is why their account of the summit reads, from this vantage, as a description of a world that has already begun to pass.

The vocabulary and its tell

The language of the coverage repays close attention. The recurring terms are “counter,” “against,” “anti-Western,” and “axis,” a vocabulary of opposition that grants the bloc no content of its own. The word “axis” carries the heaviest freight. It imports the moral architecture of the Second World War, and more recently of the “axis of evil,” and lays it over a trade-and-security forum whose membership includes a NATO government. The transfer is performed a few lines from the facts that make it untenable, and the proximity is the tell.

There is a structural habit worth naming as well. The AFP copy notes that the organization’s founding declaration describes it as not an alliance directed against other states, and then, in the following sentence, observes that the Russian and Chinese leaders have delivered anti-Western speeches at past summits. The self-description is admitted and immediately withdrawn. The skepticism applied here is selective. When a NATO communiqué describes the alliance as defensive, the same wire services do not append a reminder of its record of offensive operations. The doubt switches on for adversaries and off for partners, a selection that rests on assumption and not on evidence. Coverage outside the Western agency system handles the same material with a cooler hand. Al Jazeera quoted a regional analyst describing the SCO simply as not a coherent anti-Western alliance, a plain and accurate line that appears in no Western headline, because it does not fit the caption.

A bloc that grew in proportion to the pressure

The organization’s history explains more than its rhetoric does. It began in 1996 as a border-demarcation arrangement among China, Russia and three Central Asian republics, a technical body concerned with the settlement of frontier lines. It gained momentum in close proportion to the pressure applied to its members from the West. India and Pakistan acceded in 2017. Iran was admitted after years of sanctions had made membership useful to Tehran and to the bloc alike. The roster of dialogue partners expanded toward fifteen as American secondary sanctions and tariffs demonstrated to a widening circle of governments the value of a forum beyond Washington’s reach. At Bishkek the rotating chairmanship passed to Pakistan, another long-standing American security partner. The pattern is consistent: the organization has grown less by recruitment than by the steady conversion of states that Western policy has pressed toward the exits.

Iran offers the sharpest illustration. President Masoud Pezeshkian took his seat in Bishkek six months into a war with the United States. A week before the summit, the U.S. Treasury announced a sanctions campaign it named Operation Economic Outcast, extending secondary sanctions to five further sectors of the Iranian economy, aviation, digital assets, gold, shipping and technology, and warning in a separate alert that any party of any nationality paying Iran for passage through the Strait of Hormuz risked U.S. penalty. Secondary sanctions do not fall on the target alone. They fall on any government or firm that trades with the target, which makes them an instruction directed at the sovereign decisions of other states, enforced by the threat of exclusion from the dollar system. China, the largest purchaser of Iranian oil, responded that it would firmly defend its interests. A measure aimed at Tehran functions as a demand issued to Beijing, and Beijing traveled to Bishkek. India provides a second instance. Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a scheduled bilateral with President Vladimir Putin days after Washington imposed a 50 percent tariff on Indian goods over New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil. The instrument intended to discipline India accompanied it to the very table it was meant to keep it from.

The divisions are real, and they are the point

An accurate account of the summit requires equal candor about the organization’s limits, and candor here is what separates analysis from a mirror image of the framing under examination. The SCO is not a unified bloc. Russia and China compete for influence across the same Central Asian ground. India and China share a contested and periodically violent border, which is why Modi and Xi appeared on the same platform but arranged no formal bilateral. India and Pakistan hold membership in the same body while remaining adversaries. A proposed development bank has been discussed for years without becoming a functioning institution. The 40 percent of humanity the organization claims to encompass is a measure of scale, not of common purpose.

These divisions do not rescue the Western frame. They sharpen the judgment it obscures. Agreement among these governments does not exist, and it is not what makes the summit notable. What makes it notable is the preference of states that distrust one another to manage their disputes inside a structure the United States does not control. The arbitration of one it does control is the option they declined. That preference is a heavier comment on the standing of the American-led order than any declaration could produce. It requires no alliance and no shared ideology. It requires only that a critical mass of states has concluded that the Western order is something to work around, and that the working-around now proceeds openly, at the level of heads of state, beneath a caption instructing Western readers to see a hostile axis where a hedging one stands.

The shrinking center

The phrase that recurs whenever Western officials describe global opinion is “the international community.” Bishkek is a reminder of how much that phrase conceals. The community it invokes is a specific and diminishing set of capitals that grew accustomed, during the brief period of unchallenged American primacy after 1991, to mistaking its own consensus for the consensus of humanity. The summit in the Kyrgyz capital assembled a NATO member, a Western-courted partner in India, the Gulf security clients of the United States, and the two most heavily sanctioned states on earth, and it did so under the observation of the United Nations secretary-general. No description of that room as an anti-Western axis can be reconciled with its composition. The description persists because it serves the audience it is written for, offering a shrinking center the reassurance that it remains the fixed point around which the world still turns.

From Ankara, and from the wider vantage of states that have watched the post-1991 order lose its monopoly, the reassurance reads as a lagging indicator. The two men in the photograph were walking to lunch. The power that could not prevent the lunch, could not hold its Indian partner at a distance from Moscow, could not isolate the state it is fighting, and could not keep the head of the United Nations from attending, is nonetheless assured by its own press that the summit was organized around opposition to it. The more accurate reading is the one Türkiye’s own conduct already reflects. The world is not arranging itself against the West so much as arranging itself without waiting for it, and the caption over the photograph is the last place that development will be admitted.

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Opinion

“Blue wave” fears at Mar-a-Lago: What will the midterms bring for the US?

Published

3 days ago

03/11/2026

Sarp Sinan Hacır

The US is heading to the midterms under the shadow of the Iran War. While the American media debates whether Trump will use nuclear weapons against Iran after the midterm elections, a more realistic tension looms over Mar-a-Lago: a blue wave.

If the Trump administration can wrap up the night having surrendered only the House of Representatives, I am certain Trump will frame this as a victory. In part, one might even say it would be. Amidst so much public discontent—economic troubles, oil and electricity prices, broken promises regarding wars—nobody could plausibly claim Trump had lost if he emerged from battle carrying the Senate on his back. In any case, it is hardly unusual for the governing party to forfeit one chamber of Congress in a midterm election.

Although expectations long pointed to the Senate either remaining red or coming down to a razor-thin outcome, the situation has turned even bleaker for the Trump administration over the past month. According to polls, Democrats are leading in every single neck-and-neck state in the Senate race.

Let me lay out the arithmetic:

Presently, Republicans hold a 53-to-47 majority in the Senate. If the Democrats pick up three states tonight without losing any of their own, they reach a 50-50 tie, which can be broken by the vice president’s vote. Consequently, the Democrats must flip four states blue. For this cycle, Alaska, Kansas, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas, Michigan, and North Carolina can be considered the battleground states. Contests in Iowa and Kansas are particularly likely to be fierce. It is worth noting that Texas has not elected a Democratic senator since 1988, and Kansas has not done so since 1932.

Will the polls be wrong?

The accuracy of polling varies considerably from cycle to cycle in the US. In the 2024 elections, for instance, the forecasts proved roughly accurate. Even in 2024, however, Republican support was slightly understated in the final count. One should not automatically ascribe this to malice. While Republicans are generally strong in rural areas, urban Republicans often prefer to conceal their leanings in liberal settings. This complicates the work of pollsters.

It remains possible that the surveys are overly optimistic on behalf of Democrats. Nonetheless, the absence of Trump’s name on the midterm ballot demobilizes the Republican base. When the expected “red wave” failed to materialize in the 2022 midterms, it was claimed that Trump had lost his aura, prompting a search for new leadership. Tonight, too, Republican turnout may fall short of projections.

The road to 2028

Beyond determining the composition of Congress, this election carries another critical function: it will chart the course to 2028 for both parties. Although the Democratic Party has begun to attract interest due to Trump’s missteps, it faces formidable internal struggles, marked by both a leadership deficit and an ideological vacuum.

Following the 2024 debacle, as resentment swelled against centrist Democrats like Chuck Schumer, Kamala Harris, and the Clintons, a new current emerged on the progressive left. Spearheaded first by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and subsequently by Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, this 2026-model leftist movement dwells less on identity politics than its predecessor, striking Republicans directly at their points of vulnerability: the economy and Israel.

These two battlegrounds are the decisive factors in the 2026 midterms. Americans heading to the ballot box are squeezed by an electricity bill crisis stemming from the massive power consumption of expanding data centres following the AI boom, alongside oil prices driven by the Iran War and diesel costs tied to the Russia-Ukraine War.

In the first Trump term, an economy that performed well in its early years was derailed by the pandemic, costing him re-election. Now, however, Trump is being held accountable not for crises that developed outside his control, but for his own failures. He initiated the Iran War himself. He failed to honour his pledge to deliver peace regarding Ukraine.

El-Sayed and progressive leftists went before the public with promises to combat the cost of living and halt support for Israel, a message that resonated across the wider electorate. Yet, as in every election, what truly matters are the independents in the battleground states.

The Israel question

The Democratic Party’s mainstream establishment is uneasy with the party drifting away from Israel. Chuck Schumer, who could be regarded as the party’s leader, once even remarked, “my job is to keep the left with Israel.”

Yet centrist Democrats are currently avoiding an open confrontation with progressive leftists in light of their own recent failures. The pressure and dismissive conduct once directed at Bernie Sanders no longer seem tolerable to the party’s rank and file.

Dissenting voices persist, of course. For instance, Democratic Representative Haley Stevens of Michigan could not contain herself just days before the vote: not only did she withdraw her endorsement from El-Sayed, but she also crossed the aisle to back his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers!

Stevens faced fierce condemnation within her party, explaining her decision by claiming that “Sayed did not involve her in the campaign.” Those close to Stevens even suggested that she was pressured by her fiancé, who is Jewish, though she is not.

Radical Zionists like Stevens and Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman are attempting to hold the line against internal party transformation.

Another major consequence of this election will be the fate of this new progressive leftist current, also characterized as “Woke 2.0.” El-Sayed is attempting to defend an already Democratic-held seat, and he looks strong in the polls. Should an upset occur and he loses, Democratic hopes of securing the Senate would require a miracle, and the progressive momentum inside the party could evaporate overnight. Ultimately, with El-Sayed, this new progressive left faces its first true test outside major metropolitan centres.

Rubio waits in the wings

This election holds significant stakes for the quiet rivalry playing out within Trump’s cabinet. If Republicans suffer a devastating defeat, Marco Rubio and JD Vance, both jockeying for the 2028 presidential nomination, may find their ambitions dampened. Entering an election weighed down by the record of an administration widely judged a failure would carry severe risks. That dynamic brought defeat to Kamala Harris, who bore the burden of Joe Biden’s missteps. Rubio is a politician who avoids unwinnable contests; because he remains well regarded by the establishment, he can afford to bide his time.

JD Vance, on the other hand, made a sudden ascent through the ranks straight to the vice presidency. While he enjoys support from Peter Thiel and his circle, his backing among the party’s senior leadership is far thinner. Because he is vice president, convention dictates that the broader party will defer to his candidacy. For that reason, 2028 remains Vance’s best opportunity despite everything.

Lame duck

In summary, while the situation heading into the midterms looks grim for Republicans, it is hardly bright for Democrats. A persistent lethargy has hung over them since 2024. They produce few compelling arguments, scarcely raising their voices against Trump as they once did. The rift between the centrist establishment and the progressive left may well generate more friction than the turmoil among Republicans. Trump exploited this fault line throughout his campaign. Conservative media and politicians did not hesitate to target El-Sayed over his Muslim faith and his ties to the controversial Turkish streamer Hasan Piker.

Should Trump truly suffer a rout tonight, the incoming Congress seated in January will curtail his room for manoeuvre on international matters. It is still too early to predict the course of the Iran War, as the political landscape that emerges in both Israel and the US will exert a direct influence on its trajectory.

Ultimately, the fate of the war also hinges on the blue wave that may crash ashore in Florida tonight.

Opinion

What are Europe’s ignorant leaders failing to see?

Published

3 days ago

03/11/2026

Barış Doster

The European Union (EU) has reportedly reacted against the agreement reached between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which temporarily lifts US sanctions on Russian diesel. While Kaja Kallas, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, demanded that pressure on Russia be intensified to end the war, the foreign ministers of EU member states stated that sanctions targeting Moscow would continue despite the US decision.

While this report is striking for laying bare the ignorance of those governing the EU, it also demonstrates that, contrary to European perceptions, the US does not view the EU as an ally and does not care about its sensitivities. Clearly, priorities, goals, concerns, definitions of threats, and threat perceptions between the two sides of the Atlantic are starkly different.

What those who govern Europe fail to understand is this: neither is the US the old US, nor is Europe the old Europe, nor is the world the old world. Sadly, the EU’s rulers are blind to this plain truth. Clearly, the ignorance that is so deeply organized and institutionalized in academia, politics, and the bureaucracy in our own country is widespread in Europe as well.

Those who rule Europe need to be reminded of the words of my late, revered master, Attila Ilhan: “If only you had known a little political economy.”

At international summits and in bilateral meetings, European leaders unashamedly applaud US President Trump even as he insults them to their faces.

Yet this is not the first time in history that the US has scolded Europe; it has done so before. It was none other than the US that drove Europe from the American continent, declared “America for the Americans” (the Monroe Doctrine), and defined Latin America as its backyard. Indeed, they were the first to introduce the term “backyard” into political science. They maintained that there was no room for any other state in their backyard. Under the Monroe Doctrine, no European power, including Spain, had any place anywhere in Latin America. Only the US was to call the tune across the continent. And for long years, with the exception of Cuba, that was precisely the case.

The dictators, the presidents, the prime ministers, the chiefs of the general staff, and the senior bureaucrats were all appointed by the US. Coups, political assassinations, and conspiracies were executed or orchestrated by the US. To that end, a school was even established in the US in 1946 for their training: The School of the Americas.

The political influence of the US in the region opened the wealth of regional countries – be it oil, coffee, gold, or sugar – to plunder by US corporations. In the end, the peoples of Latin America were reduced to impoverished watchmen over bountiful resources. They were ruthlessly exploited by politicians elected by themselves, yet working for and on behalf of the US. For that reason, the US could never stomach the changing political climate in Latin America, nor could it accept losing in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras. It feared the influence of Hugo Chavez’s line across the countries of the region. It viewed China’s growing weight, trade volume, and investments in the region as a threat.

Because Europe’s current leaders view the US as an unshakeable ally, they fail to grasp what the US has done, including its actions in Latin America, and how the US actually views its own hemisphere, the world, and Europe. What is more, they are afraid. And because they are afraid, they cannot respond to the humiliating remarks about Europe made by Trump and his close associates, or to their contempt for Europe’s history, values, culture, and political understanding. They dread finding themselves in the predicament that Ukrainian leader Zelensky faced at the White House a few years ago.

Those who govern Europe do not know this: no one respects those who lack self-respect, and a leader as insolent, arrogant, egotistical, and untrustworthy as Trump will have no respect for them at all.

Opinion

Energy and electoral politics in Gagauzia: the promise of Russian gas through Türkiye’s image

Published

3 days ago

03/11/2026

Harici.com.tr

Dr. Violeta Stratan İlbasmış, lecturer

A few weeks before the presidential election scheduled for 15 November 2026 in Gagauzia, the promise of cheap natural gas is returning to the region’s political discourse. This time, the message in question is being linked to Türkiye, the TurkStream natural gas pipeline, and the possibility of procuring gas under more favourable terms. Beyond an economic pledge, this initiative raises a geopolitical question: How can Türkiye’s image be used to bolster Russia’s interests in the Republic of Moldova?

An electoral promise with geopolitical dimensions

Fiodor Gagauz, the candidate for the presidency of Gagauzia supported by the Socialist Party, announced on 21 October that he had been invited to the Verona Eurasian Economic Forum held in Istanbul on 22–23 October 2026. According to his statement, his son Dmitri Gagauz was to attend the event and discuss with Turkish partners the possibility of allocating a quota for supplying natural gas to Gagauzia under more advantageous conditions via the TurkStream pipeline.

This initiative comes at a time when Igor Dodon, leader of the Socialist Party and former president of the Republic of Moldova, announced that the socialists had reached an agreement with Russia regarding cheaper natural gas, and that a company was being sought to transport the gas to the border of the Republic of Moldova. To date, however, public statements lack sufficient detail regarding a concrete contract, the final price of the gas, transport costs, or actual delivery terms.

Türkiye: an image capable of lending credibility to Russian gas

Türkiye is a major regional actor and an economic partner to many countries, including the Republic of Moldova. It also plays a strategic role in the transit of Russian gas across the Black Sea via the TurkStream pipeline. This standing provides a concrete and credible basis for discussions concerning energy routes. In political communications, however, Türkiye’s image can serve a purpose extending well beyond the mere promotion of a transit route.

Associating the promise of cheap Russian gas with Türkiye can make the initiative more persuasive to the public: Russia is presented as the supplier of an affordable resource, and Türkiye as the regional partner capable of facilitating access to it. Thus, the image of a state with multifaceted economic and diplomatic ties can contribute to legitimizing a political message that ultimately promotes reliance on Russian gas.

From a geopolitical perspective, Russia seeks to maintain its influence in the Republic of Moldova and keep alive the notion that dependency on Russian energy sources can yield economic benefits. Particularly in a region where the cost of living and energy expenditures represent major concerns, promises of lower prices can feed this narrative. It should be noted here that citizens of the Republic of Moldova pay 26 Moldovan lei per cubic metre of natural gas, or roughly 1.30 euros.

The impact of the message can be examined independently of the actors’ intentions: Türkiye’s image can be utilized for political ends to make an offer involving Russian gas appear more credible and to serve Moscow’s geopolitical interests.

A relevant precedent: the promise of 10-leu natural gas

The issue of cheap natural gas is not being deployed in Gagauzia’s political arena for the first time. Supported by the fugitive politician Ilan Șor, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in a finalized ruling concerning the Republic of Moldova’s bank fraud case, Evghenia Guțul pledged in 2023 to provide natural gas at a price of 10 lei per cubic metre. That offer was tied to the local company “NordGaz-Furnizare” and a chain of intermediaries, including the Türkiye-based Zen Solar Enerji. Investigative journalism published at the time raised questions regarding the supply model’s structure and feasibility. Ultimately, the promise did not materialize for consumers under the announced terms and within the stated timeframe.

This precedent demonstrates how potent the issue of cheap natural gas can be as an electoral tool, and how the names of foreign companies or partners can help generate a perception of reliability around an offer. Nevertheless, the involvement of a Turkish company in an earlier supply model does not, on its own, prove the involvement of the Turkish state or the existence of coordination orchestrated by Russia.

Beyond the price: who gains politically?

As the 15 November election approaches, the promise of cheap natural gas can operate on two levels simultaneously. On the economic plane, it offers voters the prospect of lower utility bills. On the political plane, it can reinforce the idea that the solution to the region’s difficulties must be sought in energy ties with Russia and in the partnerships that make this option appear viable.

The mention of Türkiye introduces a significant dimension to this message. Rather than being framed solely as an initiative tied to Russian gas, the proposal is linked to an influential regional power and an existing energy route. Türkiye’s image can thus play a role in legitimizing a pledge that serves the discourse advocating for the preservation of energy ties with Moscow.

Even so, the existence of the TurkStream pipeline does not automatically mean that Gagauzia can access natural gas at a preferential rate. Such an offer requires contracts, suppliers, transport capacity, compliance with the regulatory framework, and transparency regarding the final cost. Until verifiable documentation and explicit supply terms are put forward, this pledge remains an electoral promise.

The essential issue is not merely whether Gagauzia will receive cheaper natural gas, but how this promise is framed. When Türkiye’s image is paired with Russian gas to enhance the credibility of an electoral offer, the potential gains may extend well beyond the economic realm and help advance Russia’s geopolitical interests in the Republic of Moldova.