Central Asia’s Turkic Countries Assume Leading Roles in Expanded Pan-Turkic Organization

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 14 – Most analysts focus on Turkey’s role in promoting the integration of the Turkic countries and peoples of the world, but at the virtual summit of Turkic countries two weeks ago, it was the Turkic countries of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, that assumed the leadership role, Ukrainian journalist Asif Aliyev says.

            The president of Kazakhstan who before the pandemic had hoped to host the summit at Turkestan, a city in his country whose name is highly symbolic, called for transforming the Council of Cooperation of Turkic Language States into the Organization of Turkic States (trtrussian.com/mnenie/tyurki-vseh-stran-obuedinyajtes-5141013 and akorda.kz/ru/glava-gosudarstva-prinyal-uchastie-na-neformalnom-sammite-soveta-sotrudnichestva-tyurkoyazychnyh-gosudarstv-v-onlayn-formate-3123541).

            Kassym-Jomart Tokayev also called for the creation of a foundation to promote various trans-national projects. In both of these moves, the Kazakh leader was supported by the presidents of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

            Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev talked about the recent victory of his country in Qarabagh where he said, with the support of Turkey and other Turkic states, Baku “had fulfilled its historic mission and destroyed Armenian fascism” (azertag.az/ru/xeber/Sostoyalsya_neformalnyi_Sammit_Soveta_sotrudnichestva_tyurkoyazychnyh_gosudarstv_v_formate_videokonferencii__Na_Sammite_vystupil_Prezident_Azerbaidzhana_Ilham_Aliev).

            At the online meeting, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that after Ramadan, he will come to Azerbaijan and visit the recently liberated city of Shusha.

            The summit adoped a declaration celebrating Azerbaijan’s win in Qarabagh, praising the development of Turkestan as a center of the Turkic world, pledging to establish an Organization of Turkic Statese at a face-to-face summit in Turkey in November, and calling for commemorations of historic figures of the Turkic world.

            Participants also said they hope that other Turkic states, including Turkmenistan, Hungary and Turkish Cyprus will joint the group. The first two are already observers and so should find it easy to increase their level of involvement, the presidents said. And that will make the Organization of Turkic States an even more important body.