Russia, China, and the West have so far said relatively little about the seven-member Organization of Turkic States. But with the Eurasian chessboard becoming increasingly pivotal as great-power competition heats up, they are unlikely to remain silent for long.
BISHKEK – I still have vivid memories of my first trip to Turkey in 1993. After the Soviet Union’s collapse two years previously, we Kyrgyz gained access to a world we had hitherto only imagined. We all had Turkish relatives somewhere in the West with whom we had lost contact. And there was a similar emotional reaction on the Turkish side: Turkey was the first state to recognize the independence of my country and the other Soviet Central Asian republics.
BISHKEK – I still have vivid memories of my first trip to Turkey in 1993. After the Soviet Union’s collapse two years previously, we Kyrgyz gained access to a world we had hitherto only imagined. We all had Turkish relatives somewhere in the West with whom we had lost contact. And there was a similar emotional reaction on the Turkish side: Turkey was the first state to recognize the independence of my country and the other Soviet Central Asian republics.