At the end of last week, both Muslims and their enemies made fun of the photos from the SCO summit of Erdogan, sitting in a relaxed position, explaining something to Putin, Rahmon, and Lukashenko, who were sitting on the same couch. The jokes were all about how this image reflected the real balance of power in regional politics — the decline of Putin’s Russia on the one hand, and the rise of Turkey and Azerbaijan on the other. Yes, we have often written about how «thanks» to Putin’s policies, Russia is leaving the arena of great politics and is likely to disappear from history. We have also written about the effectiveness of the alliance between Turkey and Azerbaijan and how it has become a rising factor in the Caucasus region.
But this raises questions — how effective was the appearance of these two countries at the SCO summit? And whose interests are served by the participation of Muslim countries in this organization? After all, memes are just jokes, and at the end of this SCO summit it was Erdogan who expressed Turkey’s desire to join this organization, which is a «creation» of the Kremlin, and not Putin, who expressed Russia’s desire to join, for example, the Organization of Turkish States (by the way, what is going on there and where does it manifest itself?). And it was Erdogan who expressed his desire to meet with Bashar al-Assad at this summit, not Putin who expressed his desire to meet with the leaders of the Syrian opposition that Turkey supports.
Many people pointed out the obvious during this summit — considering that at that time military actions were taking place simultaneously between four countries that are members of the SCO, such as Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, or countries that are official partners, such as Azerbaijan and Armenia, it is worth looking for a more useless international organization. So why participate in it? Why strive for it, even for new Muslim countries? Without tiring the reader with too long reflections, let’s say briefly: today the SCO is a project of a Chinese umbrella that its owner has allowed Russia to hold over it. And if we move from allegories to specifics, China has absolute economic dominance in it, while Russia, which is increasingly forced to bend under it, tries to play a role in it as a military-political leader or coordinator.
But the question arises — why do Muslim countries need it when they could create alternative economic and security alliances? And if someone says that they are not ready for it yet, then another question arises — why participate in such a union where, besides Russia and China, there is also India and Iran, with Myanmar on the way? Surely someone will answer: «Why not — just in case, it can’t hurt». Who knows? After all, Russia and China are clearly intensifying their confrontation with the West, and importantly, it is their confrontation, driven by their interests and goals, not Muslim ones. But by engaging with them, Muslim countries risk narrowing rather than expanding their room for maneuver.
In this regard, two almost simultaneous events should be noted — Ilham Aliyev’s visit to the SCO summit with Putin and Xi Jinping, and the visit of Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, to Yerevan. Yes, one can make ironic remarks about the second event or be outraged. But the fact remains — the USA is beginning to lean towards supporting Armenia in the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict instead of maintaining neutrality. And isn’t this a consequence of the overly warm relations between Ilham Aliyev and Vladimir Putin?
In short, this was our drop of tar in the barrel of discussions about the dominance of Turkey and Azerbaijan in politics based on the positioning and poses of their leaders. Sometimes it is worth not getting carried away with such meme-like arguments and critically evaluate the essence of political processes.