President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said NATO member Türkiye wants to be a partner in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), adding there was no reason for it not be a permanent member of the group, the Turkish media outlets reported on Friday.
"We are saying to include us here not as a dialogue partner, but as a partner to the organisation like the others," Erdoğan told reporters on a return flight from an SCO summit in Astana. "It may take some time," he was cited as saying.
Erdoğan, who met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Astana, also said he believed the Black Sea grain corridor, which allowed for the safe shipment of grains amid the Ukraine-Russia war, could be revived after it was halted last year.
