Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pushed Wednesday for stronger ties with ex-Soviet Turkic states at a summit in Central Asia, as Ankara vies with Russia and China for influence in the region, Agence France-Presse reported.
Erdoğan was attending a meeting in Bishkek of the Organization of Turkic States, a Turkish-led initiative to promote its culture and ties with former Soviet republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
“We are going to take our Organization of Turkic States [OTS] much further,” Erdoğan told leaders, calling the group an “exemplary platform.”
The member states of the OTS are Turkey and former Soviet Central Asian countries Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan as well as the Caucasus country of Azerbaijan. Turkmenistan, Hungary and the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC), recognized only by Ankara, have been admitted as observers.
Hungary, Turkey’s fellow NATO member, with whom it is seeking deeper ties, is an observer country due to ancient links to the region, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban attended the summit.
In recent years, Turkey has built stronger ties with these countries, benefiting from Russia’s relative weakness and its focus on the war in Ukraine.
Ankara emphasizes its cultural links with the region, such as similar languages and the connection of Islam. It has recently renamed Central Asia “Turkestan” in school textbooks.
Erdoğan also welcomed a recent decision by the OTS to agree on a common alphabet based on the Latin alphabet. Some OTS member states still use the Cyrillic alphabet, a relic of their Soviet past.
“Agreement on the shared Turkic alphabet project is a historic step,” Erdoğan said.
Turkey is still a relatively minor player in Central Asia, which has longstanding military, political and economic ties to Moscow, and where China has growing influence.
Ahead of the summit, Uzbekistan’s foreign ministry lamented a lack of “real progress” in building the Turkic alliance, despite the “development of commercial links” between member countries.