Moreover, it has seized an important opportunity in which its harmonization with European criteria will increase. It is very likely that this will affect other Central Asian countries in implementing democratization and observing a balanced, multidimensional foreign policy.Russia and CIS
The CIS, which was founded under the leadership of Russia in 1991, had been dysfunctional until now for various reasons, but especially due to the problems between member countries (Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Moldova).
This organization continues to hold a privileged place in Russia’s foreign policy. The shuttle diplomacy that Russia, which plans on benefiting from the organization’s ties with former Soviet countries, is undertaking with Asian countries shows that it has plans to introduce new initiatives during its term presidency in 2010. Since the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Community in 2001, Russia has been striving to develop a common economic space between members and to make the ruble the common currency. This could be taken as a sign that Russia is planning to continue exerting its influence over the former Soviet countries.
Turkey-Kazakhstan-Russia
On the other hand, when we look at the ties between Turkey, Kazakhstan and Russia, we can conclude that it will be easy for these three countries to engage in cooperation on an institutional level because their current bilateral relations are already at a very advanced level. While Turkey has been working to increase its bilateral relations with Russia to achieve a multidimensional strategic partnership since 2003, it has managed to bring relations with Kazakhstan to the highest level by signing a strategic partnership agreement in September 2007.
Trade volume between Turkey and Russia has reached $40 billion, making Russia Turkey’s biggest foreign trade partner, and the trade volume between Turkey and Kazakhstan increased eight-fold between 2003 and 2009. As for Russia-Kazakhstan ties, they have extensive relations in many sectors from energy to defense. After all, Kazakhstan has a strategic and essential value for Russia, which accounts for 70 to 80 percent of Kazakhstan’s foreign trade, revealing the high level of relations between the two countries. In this way, the three countries can use their cooperation and relations to solve existing problems in the region to ensure security and stability in Asia by means of the CICA, the OSCE and the CIS.
Concisely, the three organizations are strategically important, not only in terms of the countries that will hold their term presidencies, but also in terms of their member countries. These organizations offer opportunities that have the potential to increase security and stability in the region. In this respect, these three organizations are expected to assume a more active and constructive role in solving the problems in Afghanistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Georgia. The year 2010 offers enormous opportunities for critical players in Asia such as Turkey, Kazakhstan and Russia, which have coincidentally assumed the term presidencies of three different institutions in the same year, to create a profile that shows that they have a tremendous ability to solve existing problems, specifically problems related to security and stability in Asia.
*Muharrem Ekşi is a doctoral candidate in the international relations department at Ankara University. He is an expert on foreign relations in the Turkish Parliament.
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