Could Kazakstan Lead Turkic World?

The support voiced for Kazakstan’s plan for a Central Asian union at a meeting of Turkic states suggests that it might one day supplant Turkey as the leading nation in the Turkic world.



The tenth congress of Turkic-language peoples and countries, held in Ankara on September 19-21, was attended by guests from Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the unrecognised Northern Cyprus.



Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s announcement of a plan to create a commonwealth of Turkic states was a key event at the congress, but NBCentralAsia analysts are sceptical that this could ever work. Their doubts were only strengthened by Erdogan’s suggestion that a common historical narrative should be written for all these countries, and that they should act as a unified bloc on the international stage.



The support that Kazak president Nursultan Nazarbaev’s Central Asian union proposal got from participants counts for a lot more, the analysts say. This backing is a sign that Kazakstan, the largest of the states involved, is gradually been seen as a potential leader in the Turkic world.



Even though many people in Kazakstan speak Russian rather than the Turkic language Kazak, the country has played a central role in bringing the Turkic world together. Experts say Kazakstan’s leading role within Central Asia would help make a wider association of Turkic states a success.



Economic growth driven by rising energy prices is making Kazakstan even more ambitious – visible in its aspirations to chair the OSCE in 2009.



Turkey has only recently persuaded Kazakstan to use the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline as an oil export route, and is to an extent dependent on Astana.



There will clearly be political complexities to creating a Central Asian union if it is based on the principles of Pan-Turkism, say NBCentralAsia analysts - not least defining where Tajikistan fits in, as the only Central Asian nation that speaks an Iranian language rather than a Turkic one.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)