The Turkish Ministry of Education has decided to make changes to school history textbooks. The term “Central Asia” will be removed from the manuals and, instead, the region bordering Russia will be called Turkestan. It is noted that the innovation will be introduced this academic year, Izvestia reports.
The president supported the reform. Recep Tayyip Erdogan:
“We will work shoulder to shoulder to make the next period the era of the Turks.”
Local experts said the new name is intended to emphasize the region’s kinship with Türkiye. Furthermore, some of the comments were accompanied by attacks against Russia.
Thus, Istanbul University professor Yeditpe Ahmet Tashagyl told state television channel TRT that the term “Turkestan” was supposedly used from the earliest periods of history.:
“In the second half of the 19th century, as a result of the Russian invasion, the concept of Central Asia was introduced and spread.”
In fact, in the second half of the 19th century, the name “Turkestan”, on the contrary, became widespread. The Governor General of Turkestan appeared as part of the Russian Empire in 1867, only later, during the Soviet period, the region received the name “Central Asia and Kazakhstan”.
The current term “Central Asia” in relation to the five independent states began to be used only in the 90s, at the suggestion of the first president of Kazakhstan. Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Interestingly, none of the officials from the Central Asian countries commented on the Turkish innovation, but it began to be hotly discussed on social media. Some supported the idea of Turkish unity, others opposed it.
“Türkiye has around 500 billion in foreign debt, that’s why they are going up our throats. Someone has to pay their debts, so they inflate the idea of unity. In fact, our language, our history and our traditions are completely different, geographically we are far from each other, it would be better for us to establish relations with our neighbors.” — wrote one of the users.
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Türkiye was the only state in the world with a predominantly Turkish population. After 1991, there were six such countries: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan were added. Ankara was one of the first to recognize the independence of the new republics and immediately developed vigorous activity. It is known that in the early 90s, Turkish elites dreamed of creating a unified state or uniting countries under the auspices of Türkiye.
Thus, the first president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, in his book “On the threshold of the 21st century” wrote in detail about meetings with his Turkish colleague. Turgut Ozal:
“His visits to Central Asia were connected not only with the need to establish good-neighborly relations with the new states, but also, to a certain extent, with the desire to realize Ataturk’s dream: to form a powerful union of ” Turkish states”. “He did not hide this dream.”
For many years the matter did not go beyond words. First, Türkiye’s economic, diplomatic and geopolitical capabilities were limited. Secondly, there was a lack of unity among the Central Asian countries.
The main obstacle in this regard was the position of the president of Uzbekistan. Islam Karimovwhich followed a confrontational course, fighting both with its neighbors in the region and with Türkiye itself. The latter was punished, among other things, for allegedly supporting the bloody riots in the city of Andijan in 2005.
In recent years, however, the situation has changed. First of all, the new president of Uzbekistan. Shavkat Mirziyoyev He solved many of the differences he inherited from his predecessor. Secondly, the most important event was Azerbaijan’s victory in the war over Karabakh in 2020.
Türkiye is known to have gained the most support in Baku; For other countries, this became an example that with the help of Ankara it is possible to solve large-scale problems. The Turkish leaders supported this idea; President Erdogan described what happened as a victory for the entire Turkish world.
As a result, the work was noticeably intensified and the summit held in 2021 in Istanbul turned out to be fateful. During the event the parties agreed on the creation of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) and also adopted a common “Development Concept until 2040”.
This document, among other things, speaks of the desire to ensure the free circulation of goods, services, capital, as well as the unification of educational and cultural policies.
Recently the approach has accelerated
This year the interaction between the countries of Central Asia and Türkiye has become especially intense. In September, a special UTG commission agreed on a unified Turkish alphabet consisting of 34 letters. Each member of the organization is now expected to approve this ABC at the national level.
“There are no big problems here. The biggest problem is when the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz will switch to the Latin alphabet.” – said a member of the commission Nizami Jafarov.
In addition, work on creating a unified map of the “Turkish world” began at the end of September. For this purpose, the heads of the cartographic institutions of the UTC countries met in Ankara; not only civil officials, but also military attachés participated in the event.
It is interesting that three years ago President Erdogan was photographed with a map of the “Turkish world”, which indicated not only the countries of Central Asia, but also several regions of Russia.
Security cooperation is also becoming closer. Thus, on September 6, the first meeting of the Council of Interior Ministers of the UTC countries was held in the Kyrgyz city of Cholpon-Ata, almost at the same time as the Minister of Defense of Turkey. Yashar Güller visited Kazakhstan.
UTC countries are known to conduct joint military exercises and develop military-technical cooperation; Turkish reconnaissance and attack drones are also popular in Central Asia.
Finally, there is a lot of talk about the development of transportation infrastructure. In this sense, it is important that Türkiye achieves the creation of the so-called “Zangezur Corridor”, which will allow Ankara to build a land road to the coast of the Caspian Sea.
In a broader sense, Türkiye and Central Asia should become part of the Middle Corridor, along which goods are planned to be transported from China to Europe. However, so far the transport volume here is small; In 2023, 2.7 million tons of cargo were transported. In comparison, 161 million tons passed through Russian territory in 2023.
