Turkey,the Transcaucasus and Central Asia

1 Milliyet (Istanbul), 23 December 1991; Murat Yetkin, Ates Hattinda Aktif Politika, Balkanlar, Kafkaslar ve OrtaDogu Uçgeninde Türkiye, (Istanbul: Alan Yayincilik, February 1992), p. 293. Azerbaijan was the first republic whose independence Turkey recognized, on 9 November 1991.

2 Which include Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekstan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, not to mention the Turkic or Circassian/Muslim groups striving for autonomy within other republics whose cause Turkey has implicitly embraced, such as the Abkhazis and Meshketi Turks in Georgia, the Ossetians in Georgia and Russia, the Tatars of Kazan and the Crimea, and the Chechen-Ingush in Russia.

3 Prior to 1991, the six states in question, whose territories (formerly known collectively as Turkestan) had been conquered by the Russian empire between 1865-1886, were units of the former Soviet Union which were divided into separate republics during the 1920s and 1930s. Akdes Nimet Kurat, `Islam in the Soviet Union', in The Cambridge History of Islam, Vol. II, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 627-643.

4 Frankfurter Rundschau (Germany) and Der Standard (Austria), cited in Milliyet, 2 March 1992; Russian News Agency, cited in Milliyet, 24 December 1991 and 21 January 1992.

5 IISS survey on relations between the West and Islam, cited in Cumhuriyet, 17 August 1991; The Economist, 14 December 1991; Los Angeles Times, 15 December 1991; Newsweek, January 1992, cited in Milliyet, 29 January 1992; statements by German Defense Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg, British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and NATO General Secretary Manfred Wörner, cited in Milliyet, 7 February, 18 April and 17 February 1992, respectively; US administration's perceptions of Turkey's role in Central Asia, cited in Milliyet, 22 January 1992.

6 Cumhuriyet, 17 December 1991, cited in Yetkin 1992, p. 289; Milliyet, 24 December 1991.

7 Milliyet, 26 January 1992; Yetkin 1992, p. 310.

8 Milliyet, 26 January and 13 April 1992. Martha Brill Olcott, `Central Asia's Catapult to Independence', Foreign Affairs, Summer 1992; p. 128.

9 Milliyet, 23 March 1992.

10 Hürriyet, 16 January, 18 August and 2 November 1992.

11 Milliyet, 6 February 1992; BBC broadcast, November 1992.

12 Milliyet, 22 May 1992.

13 Hürriyet, 16 August, 8 September, 26 October 1992.

14 Hürriyet, 19, 24, 25, 27 November 1992.

15 Hürriyet, 26 September and 13 November 1992.

16 For instance, Turkey's implicit sympathy for the cause of the Abkhazis in the Georgian civil war has elicited some consternation in Russia and Georgia. Hürriyet, 8 October 1992.

17 Komsomolskaya Pravda, cited in Milliyet, 17 January 1991; Izvestia, cited in Milliyet, 22 February 1992.

18 International Herald Tribune and Milliyet, 26 June 1992.

19 Statement made by Kazakh President Nazarbayev during the summit held between the heads of state of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in Ankara on 29 October 1992. Hürriyet, 31 October 1992.

20 In advancing such a claim we do not mean to denigrate the relative value of these agreements, the projected aims of some of which are quite impressive (e.g. those involving the transport of natural gas or oil from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan or Azerbaijan to Turkish coasts, or those granting large amounts of Turkish credit for common projects). Given the overall balance, they are not likely to be as decisive as current speculation would have us believe.