The developments in Kazakhstan have compelled Moscow political analysts to come to their senses. As it turns out, resource-rich Central Asia, in the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, has been torn apart by many nations, from the US to Iran
Turkey has been the most assertive, intent on turning post-Soviet Central Asia into its own fiefdom. Ankara is pursuing an aggressive economic and political expansion even in the only country in Central Asia that is not populated by a Turkic-speaking ethnic group, Tajikistan.
“Tashkent City as a Babylonian pandemonium in a hundred languages”
Much is written and spoken about life in Uzbekistan by Turkish politicians, pundits and journalists. This is not surprising: Uzbekistan is perceived in Turkey as a kind of “little brother” who is being helped to carry out painful reforms.
Back in June, Turkey and Uzbekistan signed an agreement that envisaged cooperation in a wide range of areas – from sports and tourism to local self-governance. And now the country’s leading news agency Anadolu is gushing about how Uzbekistan will be adopting the Turkish model of local government.
And Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper reports on joint economic projects. It is Turkish construction companies that are building the ambitious Tashkent City, which will be the largest development project in Uzbekistan.
Residential buildings, offices, hotels, shopping centres and a city park are being built. Turkish contractors are building, among others, Central Asia’s tallest building, Nestone, which is 267 metres tall, and Uzbekistan’s largest shopping mall, Tashkent Mall.
In fact, the Tashkent City project itself has become a mirror of modern Central Asia, where the interests of different countries are closely intertwined. Although most of the project is in Turkey, the Hilton Hotel is being built by the British and the financial centre by the Chinese. Part of the project was designed by Germans and Russians (Strelka Design Bureau in Moscow).
Anadolu: Turkey, too, wants to participate in “superpower games”
Uzbekistan is stepping up military cooperation with Turkey, whose Defence Minister Hulusi Akar recently toured Central Asian capitals on a grand tour (just like a pop star). And shortly after Akar’s visit, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan signed a declaration on an interstate alliance, which has been commented upon extensively in Turkey itself – naturally, in a positive light.
Uzbek expert Abduvali Saybnazarov, in an interview with the state news agency Anadolu, called the declaration “a historic event”: the two Turkic countries have united to solve common problems together – without involving third countries. Anadolu also quoted Kazakh sociologist Amangeldy Kurmetuly as saying, “The rise of international relations from the strategic level to the level of alliance means these countries are ready to provide economic, social and military assistance to each other.
Kurmetulli explicitly hints to Anadolu: “We know that there are threats such as terrorism and geopolitical games of superpowers in the region. In this sense, we can say that the alliance was in fact established as a response to these threats.”
After Mirziyoyev’s visit to Istanbul, an ambitious goal was set: to bring bilateral trade turnover to $5 billion. Turkey intends to reach the same volume in trade with Turkmenistan, and with Tajikistan, by comparison, only $1 billion. But all this, of course, will only increase Turkey’s influence on the Uzbek economy.
Sumhuriyet: There’s no room for strategic vision where nationalism rules
Turkey, meanwhile, is rapidly expanding its influence elsewhere in Central Asia. Even in Tajikistan, which was historically in Iran’s sphere of interest.
Hundreds of Tajik students are studying in Turkey, and there is a training and research centre (TÖMER) in the country. Visa restrictions on travel between Turkey and Tajikistan were recently lifted, and the two countries also held a joint business forum and signed a memorandum on cooperation in light industry.
Following Mirziyoyev, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov met with the Turkish president. Unlike the Uzbek leader, he hosted Recep Erdogan in Ashgabat: Erdogan stressed in a press statement that Turkmenistan was the “historical homeland” of the Turks. The presidents signed strategic agreements in nine sectors, but the documents were not as important as the ideological signal of the historical unity of the Turkic world.
However, even in Turkey itself not all experts share the government’s optimism about the prospects for rapprochement with Central Asian countries. Political analyst and columnist Mustafa Balbay of the Kemalist (i.e. opposition) newspaper Sumhuriyet points out that Turkmenistan has not yet joined the Organisation of Turkic States (a country with observer status), while Uzbekistan (the second largest Turkic-speaking country in the world after Turkey) only did so in 2019.
Balbay points to the progress in Central Asian countries’ relations with Turkey after the collapse of the USSR as “small”. After all, Ankara has to compete with other centres of power – China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Britain, the US. In Balbay’s view, Turkey has no strategic vision of what to do with Central Asia at all, no list of priorities and no long-term plan of action. Instead, it has Turkic nationalism.
Konstantin Olshansky, Svobodnaya pressa