The aim was to “re-embrace long-lost brothers and through them assert Turkish influence in the region.” Özal's vision was too ambitious to become a reality since it was too early to expect these new states to establish a bloc with Turkey simply because they had a common Turkish dialect and the roots of ethnic Turks originated from Central Asia and the Caucasus. In addition, Turkey at the time was caught by surprise by the demise of the Soviet Union and had been unable for a long period to reorient its policies to meet the needs of the new world in the absence of one of the superpowers, i.e., the Soviet Union.
The first summit that included Turkic-speaking nations, including the leaders of Azerbaijan as well as the leaders of four states in Central Asia and Turkey, was held at the Turkish Parliament in October 1992. The joint declaration released afterwards contained principles such as the creation of a common market among the participants as well as the standardization of the Turkish language among all those states.
Eight summits held since then have not yielded any progress in achieving the goal of consolidating ties among those nations and standardizing the Turkish language. It is true that Russia played an important role in hindering any success that would come from those summits as the nations attending were still being regarded as Moscow's backyard. Added to this, Turkey also had a limited ability to develop sophisticated national strategies in response to emerging new situations.
Turkey's treatment of those nations as if they were younger brothers to be bullied irked those nations, which, after all, sought to gain their self confidence. Added to that has been Ankara's rather amateur approach to the region while neglecting Russian as well as Iranian influence in the area at the time.
The first summit initiated with high expectations of strengthening ties among “long-lost brothers” has thus been limited to the creation of Türksoy by the cultural ministries of the participating countries. Türksoy, based in Ankara with plans to move to İstanbul, is aimed at strengthening ties in academic and cultural fields. This goal has not been achieved, either.
As part of attempts to make those summits meaningful and to send a message to the world that Turkey has increasingly been asserting its influence in the region, the ninth summit of Turkic-speaking countries was held late last week in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan. Uzbek President Islam Kerimov was not at the meeting. Turkmenistan, meanwhile, participated in the meeting at the deputy prime ministerial level, and according to President Abdullah Gül this was due to the ongoing row between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan (on the status of the Caspian Sea).
President Gül told journalists accompanying him for the summit that the most exciting issue about the summit has been his desire to turn the summit of Turkic-speaking countries into an institutionalized entity. To achieve this goal, the summit participants agreed to the establishment of a council of Turkic-speaking countries based in İstanbul.
The summit meeting has an internal message intended to be given by Gül to the country's ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which is going to hold its party congress early in November, that embracing Turkic-speaking nations is not something that the MHP can do alone.
However, in the final analysis, all those nations in Central Asia as well as Azerbaijan have been expending much effort on learning English, although the effects of the Slavic culture -- Russian influence and language -- will inevitably last longer than predicted.
Ensuring a standardized Turkish language among these nations has not been achieved and is not expected to be achieved for a long time. But Gül's efforts to revitalize the summits of countries speaking a Turkic language by making them a viable gathering with planned institutions are important. This policy may turn into a workable one to strengthen ties with those nations since current Turkish foreign policy has been based more on real politics distancing itself from “empty hegemonic approaches.”
