Turkey vs. Russia in Central Asia

A few days ago, 30 years passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, bringing an end to the Cold War and the birth of a new uncertain world order. Among the countries left in search of a place in this post-Soviet world was Turkey.

The Soviet Union has always played a major role in Turkey’s foreign policy. It was Moscow’s fear that led Ankara to embrace the United States and eventually NATO, and it became the only member with a large land border with the Soviet Union. Serving as the south side of the West gave Turkey a strategic purpose in the Cold War and set a benchmark for its geopolitical value for decades as a front line against the Soviet threat.

But the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union had a similarly large impact on Turkey, writes Nicholas Morgan in an article. No longer afraid of its northern neighbor, Turkey found itself enticed as the West became less concerned with its non-Soviet interests. At the same time, the collapse of the Soviet Union opened up diplomatic space for Turkey to take on a new role for itself.

Turkish leaders, including President Turgut Ozal, felt the impending collapse of the Soviet Union, and Turkey itself was among the first to recognize each of the independent states that followed. Dr. Zaur Gashimov, a specialist in Russian-Turkish relations at the University of Bonn in Germany, said the end of the Soviet Union created a number of opportunities for Turkey as it sought to establish a border with its old adversary.

“The collapse of the Soviet Union radically changed Turkey’s geopolitical position, diversifying the capabilities of Turkish foreign and security policy,” Gashimov told Ahval News.

He noted that the re-emergence of Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan as independent states along the Turkish border is particularly important. Gassimov added that over time, Turkey had built “multidimensional and multilevel” relations with many of these new states, which helped turn it into a transit hub for trade, investment and energy, which was impossible in Soviet times. Several of these states, especially Ukraine and Azerbaijan are also among Turkey’s closest allies today.

Ties with Russia also began to change, leaving behind centuries of enmity. In the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkey and Russia have reached several important agreements that have set the tone for the complex but cooperative relationship they now maintain, said Ivan Bocharov, a researcher at the Moscow-based Russian Council on Foreign Relations.

Bocharov explained that several agreements reached in the 1990s on economic, energy and even defense co-operation had created a “complete legal framework that continues to largely determine relations between Russia and Turkey”. These, he added, were important to the troubled Russian economy of the time, despite being limited in scope.

“Russia in the 1990s was not as active in foreign policy as it is today,” said Bocharov, who attributed it to the internal problems facing Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union. “But the foundations have been laid in the fields of tourism, energy, trade, and even military-technical co-operation with Turkey.”

However, the centuries of hostility and tension have not completely disappeared. In a speech to the Turkish parliament on September 1, 1993, Turkish President Suleyman Demirel said that Turkey was “liberated from a 400-year-old threat” with the disappearance of the Soviet Union, but questioned Moscow’s motives in the former Soviet Union. .

“Is the Russian Federation worried about the dissolution of the Soviet Empire? Will local conflicts there be a pretext for rebuilding the Empire?” Demirel asked the assembled deputies.

Suspicions were also raised about one’s role in supporting threats to the other’s security. For Turkey, it has been hosting Kurdish rebels on the Russian side, including for a time the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, whom Turkey considers a terrorist.

For its part, Russia has questioned Turkey’s role in supporting Chechen separatists who sought to secede after 1991, and has defied post-Cold War moves to amend the 1936 Montreux Convention governing the passage of the Black Sea.

In its quest for a new role for itself in the former Soviet Union, Turkey has also found an opportunity to build ties with the newly independent republics of Central Asia through pan-Turkism, something that has been averted by centuries of Russian rule. In 1993, then-President άλzal stated that he envisioned a new Turkish world that stretched “from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China” and directed Turkish foreign policy toward building a foundation for that vision.

Eleonora Tafuro Abrosetti, a researcher at the Italian Institute of International Political Studies in Milan, said the break-up of the Soviet Union “opened a door” for Turkey to play a “big brother role” for Central Asian states that were politically . However, Abrosetti said that Turkish ambitions did not match its resources: “There were two big problems, the first was that Turkey was still a very weak country in the 1990s,” Abrosetti said, noting the economic woes that plagued her. Turkey at that time. “The ambition was strong, but the resources did not match those big ambitions.”

By the 2000s, Russia had begun to concentrate under President Vladimir Putin and once again wielded stronger influence in Central Asia through trade and as a guarantor of regional security. Instead, Turkey under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have focused on integrating with Europe, letting their plans in Central Asia pick up dust for a while.

However, Turkey “never abandoned its goal” in Central Asia, according to Abrosetti. Two decades after Ozal declared a new Turkish-speaking bloc in the region, Turkey has begun to consolidate through investment, security, soft power and international organizations such as Cooperation Council of the Turkish Speaking States.

As in other parts of the former Soviet Union, Central Asia is becoming a new arena of competition between Russia and Turkey. Russian officials are quick to point out Russia’s own ties to Central Asia, in part because of its common Soviet heritage, as they reject proposals through which Turkey seeks bigger plans there. It also remains the dominant diplomatic and security partner for the states there, a position that has gained more weight in the wake of the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Moscow recognizes Ankara’s “key” role in Central Asia, Abrosetti says, but insists it is not ready to divide the area, let alone extend it beyond its existing parameters: that Russia is willing to share its power with Turkey [στην Κεντρική Ασία]”Turkey is a competitor and Russia knows it,” Abrosetti said.

Petros Kranias

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Source From: Capital

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