CENTRAL ASIA The Turkish World instead of the Russian World

From education to foreign policy, the cooperation activities of the Organization of Turkish States grow. In the former Soviet countries of Central Asia, Erdogan is increasingly popular. While the project – already started in Kazakhstan under Nazarbaev – to replace the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin one, closer to Turkish phonetics, continues.

Astana () – The intensification of activities and projects of the countries belonging to the Organization of Turkish States (OTG) is causing many reactions and comments about the possibility of forming an effective counterweight to Russia’s traditional influence in Central Asia. The recent proposal to unify the Turkic alphabet with Latin letters instead of Cyrillic, seen as a decisive step towards “decolonization”, is one of the most debated topics along with many others, including the return of the Turkic tiger to the Kazakh steppes .

Local and international media, such as the British The Economist, which writes about Turkey’s continued rapprochement with Central Asia, citing the recent “Nomad Games” with the participation of 89 countries in Astana, a typically “Turkish” project, intervene on these issues. The countries involved are, obviously, Turkey and the four most explicitly Turkish countries in the region, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, as well as Azerbaijan and various parts of Russia itself and China. According to the article, “the idea of ​​a common Turkish identity was very scary to the Soviets, and the same is true today of the Russians and Chinese.”

The Otg is increasingly becoming a tool for developing cooperation in many areas, from education to foreign policy. Many institutions and organizations are “reformulating themselves by reducing the presence of Russians,” as commented by Harvard University professor Nargis Kasenova, of Kazakh origin. Of course, the state that does the most to replace Russia in the region is Turkey, which annually increases its trade balance with the other Turkic countries to almost $13 billion last year.

At the Nomad Games, a standing ovation greeted the speech by Bilal Erdogan, son of the president of Turkey and a sports executive, a classic feature of the rise to the top of politics in these countries. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s own personality is highly revered in Central Asia, at least as much as it is criticized in the West. Trust in Moscow, on the other hand, has plummeted since the invasion of Ukraine, as Kasenova claims, although “senior officials in Kazakhstan and other countries try not to irritate the Kremlin, but in private conversations express disappointment with Moscow’s demands.” ».

Military supplies are also being sought to reduce dependence on Russia, and Türkiye plays a crucial role in this. The Economist recalls that in 2020, Azerbaijan used Turkish drones in the Nagorno-Karabakh war, and other countries have also purchased considerable quantities. Kazakhstan even signed an agreement with Ankara to produce Anka drones on its territory.

Moscow’s influence remains considerable, for example in the export of Kazakh oil, 80% of which is delivered through Russian territory, not to mention Internet traffic, which passes almost entirely through Russia. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are members of the Collective Security Organization Csto, the post-Soviet military alliance based in Moscow, supplied almost entirely by Russian weaponry. Russian propaganda often insists on repressive actions against the Russian-speaking population of Kazakhstan, threatening possible actions in the northern regions, as has already happened in Ukraine.

However, the project, still initiated under the presidency of Nursultan Nazarbaev, to adopt the Latin alphabet from 2025 remains on track. The main argument focuses on the distortion of Turkish phonetics in the use of Cyrillic, and the change to the Latin alphabet would also allow these countries to be more integrated into the world economy, opening them greater access to technology and scientific innovations. On the other hand, changing the alphabet requires large investments of hundreds of millions of dollars, and is unlikely to become a reality before 2030, assuming that there is no return of Russian imperial domination over the lands of Central Asia.