Türkiye

The 2026 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Heads of State summit takes place from Tuesday, September 1, in Bishkek. It is being hosted by the president of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov, who currently holds the SCO chair. High-level meetings will also be held in the SCO Plus format. The SCO summit will be attended by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko; Chinese President Xi Jinping; Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi; Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian; Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev; Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif; Russian President Vladimir Putin; Tajik President Emomali Rahmon; Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev; as well as  Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev; Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan; Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh; Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Togo Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé; Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; Laos President Thongloun Sisoulith; the Vice President of Vietnam Võ Thị Ánh Xuân; and the Deputy Prime Minister of Egypt Hussein Issa. Representatives of international organisations include UN Secretary-General António Guterres; CIS Secretary-General Sergei Lebedev; CSTO Secretary-General Taalatbek Masadykov; Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission Bakytzhan Sagintaev; and Secretary General of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia Kairat Sarybay. The member-state session brings together Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Combined, these ten SCO countries have a collective GDP (PPP) of about 36% of the global total (US$80 trillion) and a population of about 3.4 billion. They will discuss pressing issues on the international and regional agenda and priority areas for the SCO’s development, as well as prospects for deepening cooperation in the political, trade and economic, transport and logistics, digital, environmental, cultural and humanitarian spheres. Following the meeting, a ‘Bishkek Declaration’, marking the 25th anniversary of the SCO, as well as documents and decisions aimed at further strengthening multifaceted cooperation and improving the organisation’s activities, will be signed. A number of thematic statements by the heads of state will also be adopted. At the expanded SCO Plus format, participants will exchange views on strengthening the central coordinating role of the United Nations and international law, as well as promoting sustainable development and expanding mutually beneficial cooperation.

"The signing of the framework agreement between Armenia and the United States on the Trump Route for Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) on June 4, 2026, and the ruling Civil Contract party’s victory in Armenia’s June 7 parliamentary elections have opened a window of opportunity to advance Armenia-Türkiye normalization. Türkiye, in coordination with the United States, is well positioned to seize this moment and help move the region from frozen conflict toward normalization", write Dr Benyamin Poghosyan, in this article for the Turkish publication, "Global Panorama". He adds, "TRIPP emerged from the August 2025 Washington meeting, where Armenia and Azerbaijan also initialed a peace agreement, giving fresh momentum to regional normalization. Since then, TRIPP has been moving toward implementation. The framework agreement signed on June 4 established the basis for developing and operating the route. This was followed in early July by a visit from engineers from the U.S. consulting firm AECOM, who surveyed the proposed site for rail and other infrastructure development. On July 16, the Armenian government approved a draft law to ratify the framework agreement and submitted it to the Constitutional Court. These steps were encouraging for both the Armenia-Azerbaijan and Armenia-Türkiye normalization processes, as all sides view TRIPP as part of the region’s broader transition from conflict and isolation toward connectivity and cooperation. Yet normalization has not proceeded as some may have expected, and the momentum generated in Washington is fading. The main hurdle to signing the peace agreement is Azerbaijan’s insistence that Armenia amend its constitution. The dispute centers on the preamble’s reference to Armenia’s 1990 Declaration of Independence, which cites a 1989 decision supporting the reunification of Soviet Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia’s prime minister had stated that amending the constitution had been part of the ruling party’s election platform and promised to publish a draft of the new constitution by the end of 2026. But despite its victory, the Civil Contract party did not secure the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to approve a new constitution. Even if the ruling party can persuade some opposition MPs to support it, final approval would still require a nationwide referendum, whose outcome is far from guaranteed given significant public opposition. That, in turn, has complicated Armenia-Türkiye normalization, as Ankara considers a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan a prerequisite for progress. Relations between Yerevan and Ankara have improved since 2022. In July 2022, the two sides agreed to open their border to third-country nationals and diplomatic passport holders as a first step toward full normalization. Since then, their special representatives have met several times, discussed rehabilitating the Gyumri-Kars railway, and agreed to permit direct trade. But the talks have produced no major breakthrough, and four years later, the border remains closed. This has created a vicious circle: without constitutional change, there is no Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement; without that agreement, Armenia-Türkiye normalization cannot advance; and without progress on either track, the momentum generated by the August 2025 Washington summit risks being lost. Meanwhile, the U.S. midterm elections in November may shift the Trump administration’s attention toward domestic politics, leaving roughly four months to break the deadlock and restore momentum." click the image to read the article in full)