From Turkish Press:  Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey, which became "dialogue partner" with Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), was the first NATO member state establishing such a relation with SCO.

Davutoglu told reporters on Sunday that Turkey approved dialogue partnership with SCO in June 2012 and recently put a signature on the deal.

From AA:  Two years ago we gave instructions and started working on this matter. The only lack was a signature. Now we’ve completed the process of the dialogue partnership,” Davutoğlu said. “We are the first NATO state to establish such a relationship with the SCO,” he added. “If we look from a Cold War perspective, these may seem like mutually exclusive institutions. However, the Cold War has ended. Turkey won’t be a slave of the Cold War logic.”

From Reuters:  NATO member Turkey signed up on Friday to became a “dialogue partner” of a security bloc dominated by China and Russia, and declared that its destiny is in Asia.

“This is really a historic day for us,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in Kazakhstan’s commercial capital Almaty after signing a memorandum of understanding with Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Secretary General Dmitry Mezentsev.

“Now, with this choice, Turkey is declaring that our destiny is the same as the destiny of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) countries. . . .”

Turkey’s “dialogue partner” status, also granted to Sri Lanka and ex-Soviet state Belarus, is below that of observer status held by India, Pakistan, Mongolia, Iran and Afghanistan which participate in SCO meetings but have no right to vote.

Davutoglu, upbeat and smiling, stressed however that this status was “just the beginning.”  (photo: Sabah)