Asian studiesPolitical studies

Turkish strategic calculations in Central Asia are a mixture of culture, politics, and economics

Turkey has worked to deepen and frame its political and economic relations with Central Asian countries through multilateral institutions. In 1992, a summit of heads of Turkish-speaking countries was held for the first time, then the presidential summits continued to be held periodically, resulting in the establishment of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking countries “Turkish Council” in 2009, whose name was changed in 2021 to the “Organization of Turkish States”. It is an organization that includes Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan, as well as Turkmenistan, which joined as an observer due to its neutrality in its foreign policies.

 policies aimed at strengthening Turkey’s position in the international arena, by rediscovering its historical roots in the former Ottoman space. Turkey hastened, in 1992, to recognize the independence of four of the five Central Asian countries of ethnic Turks, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, unlike Tajikistan of Persian ethnicity. In light of the cultural, religious and linguistic proximity between these countries and Turkey, talk began about the unification of the Turkish world (1)Azerbaijan, which is located in the South Caucasus linking Turkey and Central Asia. The file of energy resources in Central Asia has also emerged on the Turkish agenda in light of Ankara’s need to diversify its resources to avoid excessive dependence on natural gas imports from Russia and Iran, as well as turning into a hub for energy transfer from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea to European markets through alternative routes that go beyond Russian territory, which It strengthens Ankara’s role as a leader in the Turkish Eurasia (2) .

1
Map of Central Asia Source ( Silk Road briefing )

First: The importance of Central Asia to Turkey, and the Turkish strategy towards it

During the 1990s, Turkey focused on national identity as an entry point for strengthening relations with Central Asian countries. It also presented itself as a bigger brother that represented a window for those countries to the West, and pushed towards adopting the Turkish model of governance based on a mixture of secularism, democracy and a market economy in a Muslim country. However, Turkey faced a reluctance from the Central Asian countries for reasons related to the structure of absolutism in the region, the desire not to replace the Turkish big brother with the Russian older brother, and the preference of the countries of the region to pursue independent foreign policies (3) . 

With the Justice and Development Party (AKP) coming to power in 2002, Turkish policies towards Central Asia changed to become more pragmatic, and several factors combined that made Turkey pay increasing attention to the region, which has abundant oil and gas reserves, and is located on the historical transmission lines between China and Europe, which are the lines that It remained closed throughout the Soviet era; This coincided with the rise of China as a prominent global economic player, the European Union’s procrastination in including Turkey in its ranks, and the emergence of multiple differences between Ankara and Washington, as in the file of US support for the SDF forces in Syria, and the refusal to extradite America to Fethullah Gulen, against the background of his accusation of orchestrating the 2016 coup.

Ankara has seen projects such as the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative as an opportunity for Turkey to utilize its geographical location to link east and west by providing logistics services and linking railway and road infrastructure with the South Caucasus and Central Asia across the Caspian Sea.

The previous factors combined to make Eurasia, with Central Asia at its heart, represent an alternative to Turkey’s dependence on the West as a strategic ally, which contributes to pushing for multipolarity in the international system, allowing Ankara to practice a more independent foreign policy (4) , especially with the increasing contradiction of Turkish interests with its allies Westerners (5) .

 KazakhstanUzbekistanKyrgyzstanTurkmenistanTajikistan
population19 million34.9 million6.6 million6.2 million9.5 million
oil reserves12 worldwide
gas reserve16 worldwide4 worldwide
Corruption Perceptions Index 2021102 worldwide140 worldwide144 worldwide169 worldwide150 worldwide

Data collected by the author from the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index and the 2021 Congressional Research Center (Central Asia: Background and Relationships with the United States) report.

Second: Forms and dimensions of the Turkish presence in Central Asia

1- Institutionalizing political and economic cooperation

Turkey has worked to deepen and frame its political and economic relations with Central Asian countries through multilateral institutions. In 1992, a summit of heads of Turkish-speaking countries was held for the first time, then the presidential summits continued to be held periodically, resulting in the establishment of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking countries “Turkish Council” in 2009, whose name was changed in 2021 to the “Organization of Turkish States”. It is an organization that includes Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, as well as Turkmenistan, which joined as an observer due to its neutrality in its foreign policies.

The “Turkish Council” is the first presidential gathering of Turkish states, which has about 160 million people, and aims to strengthen cooperation between Turkish states in the fields of politics, economy and culture (6) . The presence of the heads of member states adds weight to the meetings of the organization, which focus in each summit on a specific topic, which was addressed in the last summit held in 2021 “Green Technologies and Smart Cities in the Digital Age” (7) .

The “Organization of Turkish States” includes the Turkish Business Council, which aims to promote investments among member states through coordination between representatives of the private sector, and the total foreign trade volume of the member states of the organization during the year 2020 amounted to about 560 billion dollars, which represents approximately 3% of the global trade volume. (8) . Next to the Turkish Council is the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic Speaking Countries ( Turk PA ), which was established in 2008 and aims to coordinate legislation and exchange experiences between the parliamentary committees of member states.

2- The cultural axis and soft power

The Turkic world has emerged as a cultural concept rather than a political term, and although it has expanded to include Turkic peoples from the Balkans to Siberia, it is rooted mainly in Turkey and Central Asia. In 1993, the International Turkish Culture Organization ” TURKSOY ” was established to include Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The organization works on employing cultural diplomacy to enhance solidarity among the Turkish world, especially in Central Asia, which suffered from the imposition of a Soviet culture by force at the expense of local cultures (9) .

Also, Turkish schools began to spread in Central Asia since 1992 until their number reached dozens of schools, which contributed to building a cultural bridge between Turkey and the countries of Central Asia. New Turkish culture instead of the old Soviet elites (10). Turkey also established, in 1992, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency “TIKA” to oversee the provision of Turkish development aid to the countries of the region (11) .

However, the Turkish cultural presence was subjected to several obstacles, such as the Uzbek government’s closure of all Turkish schools on its territory, in 2000, against the background of Ankara’s refusal to extradite the Uzbek opposition leaders after they sought refuge in Turkey, while the second crisis emerged after the attempted military coup, in 2016, where it requested Ankara closed the schools affiliated with Fethullah Gulen in Central Asia and handed them over to the Turkish Maarif Endowment, which Kyrgyzstan rejected on the pretext that it did not allow it to interfere in its internal affairs (12) .

3- Partnership and strategic cooperation initiatives

Kazakhstan is the largest country in Central Asia in terms of area, with which Turkey established a strategic partnership in 2009 that turned into a high-level strategic cooperation council in 2016, which contributed to making Kazakhstan the second largest country hosting a Turkish community after Germany. The railways between the two countries are via Georgia, while Turkish embassies in Latin America and Africa provide visa services to citizens of countries where Kazakhstan does not have diplomatic representation (13) .

As for Uzbekistan, which includes the largest population bloc in Central Asia, its relations with Turkey witnessed a boom after the departure of former President Islam Karimov in 2016; His successor adopted a more open foreign policy. Uzbekistan joined the Turkish Council, in 2019, and reopened the branch of the Turkish TIKA Foundation, while the anti-terrorism file became one of the most important areas of cooperation between the two countries, especially after the involvement of an Uzbek citizen in the attack on Istanbul Airport, in 2016, killing 42 people, and another Uzbek citizen was involved in an attack on a nightclub in Istanbul, 2017, killing 39 people (14) .

As for Kyrgyzstan, in light of its renewed border conflict with Tajikistan, and the lack of Russian support for its military needs, it recently requested military-technical assistance from Turkey expressing a desire to strengthen political and security relations with Ankara# a15 .

With Turkmenistan adopting neutrality in its foreign policy, Turkish cooperation with it is limited to the economic aspect, and Turkey hopes to be able to transport Turkmen gas to Europe through its territory. While Turkish relations with Tajikistan, which is of Persian ethnicity, are limited to economic relations and security cooperation in combating drug smuggling and terrorism across the Tajik-Afghan border.

In all, Turkey’s regional integration policy towards Central Asia hopes to take common positions against regional problems and promote economic cooperation, which was manifested in the inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway in 2017, which allows Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan to avoid traffic Prussia in exporting goods to Central Asia.

2
The route of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Railway, Source:  Recent Developments in the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Railway Project , Eurasian Research Institute

In December 2020, the first train carrying goods from Turkey to China arrived two weeks after leaving Istanbul, instead of the 15-20 day journey via Russia or 45-60 days via the Suez Canal.

3
The rail route between Turkey and China across the Caspian Sea and Kazakhstan, Source: ( Turkey’s Central Asia policy, Strategic Comments , IISS, Vol 27, N: 3, 24 May 2021)

The file of energy transfer from Central Asia to Western markets without passing through Iran or Russia has remained a goal for Europe, which has been relatively achieved through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which ends at the Turkish port of Ceyhan from which oil is transported by shipping tankers, which has benefited Including Turkey, receiving about 300 million dollars in transit fees on average annually (16) , in addition to transporting natural gas from the Caspian Sea through the (Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum) pipeline, which contributed to the transfer of Azeri gas to Turkey for the first time.

exporting countryQuantity exported to Turkey
Russia1.69 billion cubic meters
Iran855 million cubic meters
Azerbaijan729.4 million cubic meters

Importing gas in Turkey during June 2022 (17)

Third: Effects of the Afghan file

Afghanistan is part of Greater Central Asia; Where the Uzbeks, Turkmen and Kyrgyz people of Turkish origin live in the north of Afghanistan, and therefore, from the Turkish perspective, Afghanistan represents a link with the Turkic-speaking countries in Central Asia and the Turks in East Turkestan (18) .

With the return of the Taliban to rule again, and the fear of America, China, Russia and Central Asian countries that Afghanistan will turn into a springboard for armed Islamic groups that may threaten neighboring countries, an opportunity arose that Turkey sought to exploit in light of the religious and sectarian common between it and the Afghans, by playing a role in mediation between the international community And the Taliban, a role that enhances Turkey’s negotiating position with Moscow, Washington and Tehran on other issues such as Syria, Libya and Qarabakh.

Turkey also has direct intersections with the Afghan file in the file of illegal immigration, which is increasing in an atmosphere of instability, and the file of combating terrorism in light of ISIS activity in Afghanistan, which has adopted several attacks on Turkish territory carried out by elements from Central Asia. In conclusion, Turkey’s involvement in the Afghan file contributes to its presence as an active player in global politics, especially in an issue that extends its influence to Central Asia, but given the complexity of the conflict in Afghanistan and the involvement of several international and regional parties in it, Turkey is keen to work within a regional approach in which it cooperates with several Countries, most notably: Pakistan and Qatar.

Conclusion

Despite the various steps to strengthen the Turkish presence and partnerships with Central Asian countries, Ankara faces significant geopolitical, economic and political obstacles related to its ability to deepen its role in Central Asia in light of the presence of two global powers competing for influence in the region. Russia considers Central Asia as a strategic depth for it within Its vision of the Russian neighborhood and the post-Soviet space that it refuses to give up to other powers, as well as Turkey’s dependence on Russian energy resources in a way that limits its ability to clash with Russian interests.

Moscow has military and economic tools that enable it to impose its agenda on the countries of the region. It has military bases in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization led by Russia, and the organization’s rapid intervention forces intervened, in early 2022, to support the government Kazakh in the face of the turmoil it faced, while neither Turkey nor the Organization of Turkish States had any significant role in it, and remittances of migrant workers from Central Asia in Russia make up a significant amount of GDP around 30% of GDP in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (19) .

For its part, China is working to employ the Belt and Road Initiative to spread its influence towards the West and not the other way around, and thus Beijing is working to consolidate its economic influence in the region, which Turkey cannot compete with in light of the internal dilemmas facing the Turkish economy such as high inflation and low The value of the currency, the increase in the bill for importing energy resources, as well as Turkish involvement in several foreign files hinders Ankara’s ability to allocate more financial resources and investments in a manner similar to Russian or Chinese investments in Central Asia.

Finally, an obstacle is the politics of the Central Asian states themselves. As it engages in partnerships with Turkey in order to diversify its political relations and balance its relations with Russia and China, but in the end it does not adhere to Turkish directions, which is reflected in the refusal of the member states of the “Organization of Turkish States” to include the Turkish state of Northern Cyprus for membership in the organization or even accepting it as an observer. And only her presence as a guest, in order to avoid any tension in relations with Russia and the West. Thus, Turkey will continue to be an active player in Central Asia, but only behind Russia and China.

About the author

Ahmed Maulana

Researcher in international relations.REFERENCE

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SAKHRI Mohamed

I hold a bachelor's degree in political science and international relations as well as a Master's degree in international security studies, alongside a passion for web development. During my studies, I gained a strong understanding of key political concepts, theories in international relations, security and strategic studies, as well as the tools and research methods used in these fields.

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