The Renewal of Dashed Turkish Hopes in Central Asia

Gülşen Aydın’s chapter touches upon Turkey’s foreign policy towards Central Asia, where ethnically Turkish states were established after the Soviets’ dismantlement. Since

the 1990s, Turkey sought to get in touch with them and so to distance the

Russian threats from its own borders. Mostly concluded that in the 1990s,

Turkey could not achieve what it targeted, not raise ambitions to re-involve in

Central Asian politics. As a rising regional power, Turkey encounters Russia,

China, Iran, and partly India over the natural resources in the region, having

the advantage of the common ethnic origin. Lacking material power to financially substantiate its foreign policy, it seems that Turkey has been employing

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Introduction 13

soft-power instruments such as cultural, educational, and partly commercial

relations. Turkey is also eager to host transnational energy routes from Central Asia to Europe, which Russia potentially agrees with it. In short, Central

Asia is most likely to be another target field for regional and international

great power politics.