THE TURKIC WORLD: A CONCEPT OF CO-OPERATION BETWEEN CENTRAL ASIAN COUNTRIES

What is the modern concept of co-operation between the Central Asian countries and why is the Turkic world, according to many scientists, a promising concept of such co-operation? We try to understand this issue in this article. Considering historical retrospect, we note that the territory of modern Central Asia, in the XIX century, was in the sphere of interests of the Russian tsar, who established a protectorate over this territory to protect his southern borders. Later becoming part of the USSR, the territory of Central Asia was divided into five Soviet republics: Uzbek SSR, Kazakh SSR, Tajik SSR, Turkmen SSR, Kyrgyz SSR.

The advantages of living in the USSR included the large-scale construction of schools, hospitals, factories, irrigation facilities, and infrastructure facilities that are still functioning today, industrialization and literacy. There were also plenty of disadvantages: together with other Soviet republics, the Central Asian republics experienced the “charms” of collectivisation, repression, authoritarian rule, and most importantly, forced Russification: in all republics, the official language was Russian, which caused a natural discontent of the indigenous nationalities of these republics. For example, a young man from the Uzbek hinterland, where the Russian language was not predominant and was not taught well enough at school, experienced difficulties in studying at a university and further building a career due to insufficient knowledge of the Russian language.

The collapse of the Soviet Empire radically changed the life of the countries of the region. Currently, the Central Asian countries have a fairly high economic and demographic potential, as well as a convenient geographical location for the transit of goods from Europe to Asia and back. The attractiveness of the region for many leading world powers has led to rivalry between them for influence on the countries of Central Asia. Thus, the EU and the US are seeking to strengthen their influence, while Turkey, Iran, India, and China are seeking to strengthen their positions in the east. Russia also does not want to lose influence in Central Asia, considering this region to be a historically established sphere of its interests. Russia needs to maintain its influence in the region in order to realise its political and economic interests, in particular with the development of energy resources and maintaining a monopoly on them, using this factor as a lever of pressure on both the leaders of the Central Asian countries and their Western partners.

China, like Russia, is aggressively promoting the idea of a multipolar world, preparing itself for the role of one of its centres. The countries of the region are also in the orbit of Chinese interests, due to the need for the Chinese economy to have access to energy resources and oil and gas reserves.