Azerbaijan and the SCO: Baku's New Role in the Changing Architecture of Eurasia

The upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek will be one of the most representative international events of the year. Leaders of states representing a significant part of the Eurasian space - Russia, China, India, Iran, Central Asian countries and other states - will gather at one table. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev will also take part in the summit.

As AZERTAC reports, the Azerbaijani leader has been invited both to the meeting of the Council of Heads of State of SCO member states and to the summit-level meeting in the SCO+ format. The participation of the head of Azerbaijan in the organisation's events is already becoming systematic and reflects a significantly broader process - the consistent strengthening of the country's positions in the emerging political and economic architecture of Eurasia.

The Bishkek summit will take place in the year of the SCO's 25th anniversary. Its participants will discuss the international and regional situation, issues of security, trade, transport and logistics, digital technologies, ecology, cultural and humanitarian cooperation. A separate topic of the SCO+ meeting will be the role of the UN and international law, sustainable development and the expansion of mutually beneficial cooperation. Thus, the summit's agenda itself largely intersects with the areas that have been occupying an increasingly prominent place in Azerbaijan's foreign policy in recent years.

Azerbaijan's relations with the SCO have their own consistent dynamic. In 2016, the country received the status of dialogue partner. Subsequently, Baku's contacts with the SCO and its leading states intensified significantly.

Particularly indicative was the participation of President Ilham Aliyev on 1 September 2025 in the SCO+ meeting in the Chinese city of Tianjin. Speaking before the summit participants at the time, the Azerbaijani leader spoke not only about cooperation with the organisation itself, but also about the new configuration of transport and economic links on the Eurasian continent.

Today, Azerbaijan's significance for the SCO space is determined by a whole range of factors: from geographical location and transport potential to an independent foreign policy and established relations with the largest centres of power.

Baku consistently builds relations with China, Russia, Central Asian states, Türkiye, European countries and the United States. At the same time, cooperation with one direction is not viewed as an alternative to relations with another. It is precisely this model that allows Azerbaijan to maintain freedom of foreign policy manoeuvre in conditions when the international system is undergoing a period of profound transformation.

A special place in this policy is occupied by relations with one of the key SCO states - China. In recent years, Azerbaijani-Chinese ties