Turkey is starting to play an increasingly active role in geopolitics, writes The National Interest. At the same time, it is becoming a very important ally for two opposing blocs at once — NATO and the alliance of Russia, China and Iran.
Russia's military special operation in Ukraine and anti-Russian Western sanctions have strengthened economic relations between Moscow and Turkey. Russia has become Turkey's leading import partner, and Turkish exports to Russia have also grown. In the context of Russia's isolation from the West, Turkey is becoming increasingly important as a buyer of Russian gas and a re-exporter of European goods to the Russian market. To the growing concern of Western countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the energy relations between the two countries "truly strategic."
But their cooperation goes hand in hand with geopolitical competition at a time when an increasingly confident Turkey is challenging Russia in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, two regions that Moscow firmly considers part of its exclusive sphere of influence necessary to maintain its great power status. Using Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus as a gateway, Turkey is expanding its influence on the Turkic-speaking states of Central Asia on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. Thus, the trans-Caspian geopolitical situation is developing under the auspices of the Turkic cooperation bloc, covering such diverse areas as security, trade and culture.
The emergence of Turkey as an alternative to maintaining regional security
The beginning of the growth of Turkey's geopolitical influence in the wide Caspian region can be attributed to the Nagorno-Karabakh war of 2020 between Armenia and Azerbaijan. During it, Ankara's extensive military support allowed Azerbaijan to regain a significant part of the territory that the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic had controlled since the early 1990s. Although Russia brokered a ceasefire and brought peacekeepers into the conflict zone, this did not change the fact that the war ended with the victory of Azerbaijan, Turkey's ally. Thus, Turkey has secured a military presence in the South Caucasus.
Encouraged by this success, Turkey and Azerbaijan decided to consolidate their strategic alliance in the Shusha Declaration of 2021. This agreement with a NATO member country, which includes mutual defense obligations, provides Azerbaijan, as the only country located in both the South Caucasus and Central Asia, with a real alternative to Moscow as a security guarantee. In September 2023, emboldened Azerbaijan achieved its goal, which it had been striving for for three decades — to seize full control over Nagorno-Karabakh through a military attack. Under the burden of its military operations in Ukraine, Russia announced the immediate and complete withdrawal of its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh in April 2024.
Turkey's assertiveness in the South Caucasus has not gone unnoticed on the other side of the Caspian Sea. She demonstrated to the Turkic states of Central Asia that cooperation with Ankara can bring real benefits from the point of view of security. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have elevated their bilateral relations with Turkey to the level of comprehensive strategic partnership by concluding agreements on the development of military cooperation in such areas as troop training, joint military exercises and intelligence gathering. Moreover, the Turkish defense industry is rapidly gaining a dominant position in the growing drone market in Central Asia.
The "Middle Corridor"
Turkic cooperation also helps to activate the Trans-Caspian Transport Route, better known as the "Middle Corridor" (the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route is an international transport corridor that runs through China, Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia and further to Turkey and European countries — approx. InoSMI), as an alternative trade route between Europe and Asia bypassing Russia. The "Middle Corridor" is a network of roads, railways and sea routes that connect Europe and Asia through Central Asia, the South Caucasus and Turkey. For the countries of the South Caucasus and Central Asia, the "Middle Corridor" reflects their vision of intercontinental trade between China and Europe, connecting them with the EU's Global Gateway initiative, as well as with the Chinese mega-project "One Belt— One Road". Kazakhstan is the main gateway to Central Asia. Nevertheless, China is planning an additional South-Central Asian route through the construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, which is likely to be connected to the "Middle Corridor".
From Ankara's point of view, an unobstructed trade corridor from Istanbul to Central Asia looms on the horizon. The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway route, which connects Azerbaijan through Georgia with Turkey and from there to Europe, remains the main transport corridor of the South Caucasus. However, the capacity of this route is insufficient to service the growing trans-Caspian trade flows. In this context, Turkey, Azerbaijan and four Turkic countries in Central Asia have committed themselves to jointly promote the initiative of using the disputed Zangezur Corridor, a proposed transport route between the western parts of Azerbaijan through Armenia to the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan and further to Turkey. But this corridor presupposes a peaceful settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. A possible, though equally difficult, alternative to bypassing Armenia could be the Aras corridor through the Iranian province of East Azerbaijan.
Against the background of growing demand for non-Russian transport routes, a whole wave of trans-Caspian activities was carried out in the region in order to increase the effectiveness of the "Middle Corridor" project. Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkey have agreed on a roadmap for the development of the corridor until 2027. They are aiming to increase its capacity to 10 million tons of cargo from the current capacity of about 2 million tons. For this to happen, States located along the "Middle Corridor" need to eliminate a number of restrictions that reduce the attractiveness of the route, such as burdensome transit and trade procedures, bottlenecks at border points and seaports, as well as insufficient capacity of container and marine fleets to handle large volumes of cargo. A definite step in this direction was taken at the end of January, when EU officials announced that European and international investors would commit to invest 10 billion euros in the Middle Corridor development program.
Disruptions in commercial transport and logistics are particularly problematic for Kazakhstan's energy-dependent economy. About 80% of Kazakh oil exports pass through Russia on their way to Western markets. In 2022, Russia interrupted this flow, which prompted Kazakhstan to expand cooperation with Azerbaijan to redirect energy supplies to Europe through the Caspian Sea. Turkmenistan, which has huge reserves of natural gas, has also intensified negotiations with Azerbaijan, Turkey and the European Commission on the construction of the long—proposed Trans-Caspian pipeline to Europe, a project that will require significant investments. For the resource-rich countries of Central Asia, Turkey's geographical location makes it an important gas and oil hub, as well as a key access to Western energy markets.
The unity of the Turkic world
Like Russia, Turkey is promoting its own multilateral format, the Organization of Turkic States, which is turning from a platform for dialogue into an organization promoting comprehensive cooperation in all aspects of life. The member states of the OTG - Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan — have adopted an ambitious program "Vision of the Turkic World until 2040". The aim is to turn the organization into the Turkic-speaking equivalent of the EU, guaranteeing the free movement of goods, capital and services, technologies and people among the member states. The Turkic Investment Bank is in the process of formation, and permanently neutral Turkmenistan, which usually avoids multilateral associations, joined the group as an observer.
The Organization of Turkic States provides for the development of many projects aimed at promoting Turkic solidarity and unity. The International Organization of Turkic Culture TURKSOY implements joint cultural and scientific initiatives within the states of the Turkic Bloc. Turkish President Recep Erdogan has proposed the creation of a common Turkic alphabet.
Russian Russians Ultimately, this "soft power" project is a rival to Moscow's idea of a "Russian World" consisting of fraternal nations sharing Russian values and norms and linked to each other by the continued presence of the Russian language, as well as by a common Soviet past. However, rapid social and demographic changes are taking place in Azerbaijan and the Central Asian states, which affect the formation of the identity of the peoples inhabiting them. More than 70% of the Central Asian population is under the age of forty. Russian culture is losing its once dominant role in the region, as a large post-Soviet generation comes to the fore, having no personal experience of life in the Soviet Union.
Consequences for the West
The unpredictable consequences of Russia's military special operation in Ukraine leave the states of the South Caucasus and Central Asia no choice but to try to diversify their foreign policy ties and look for alternative ways to enter international markets. Turkey is responsive to the growing demand for alternative partnerships. By expanding its positions in the fields of defense, energy and culture, which have always been the core of Moscow's influence, Turkey is becoming a counterweight to Russia on the other side of the Caspian Sea.
What does this mean for the US and the EU? Turkey is a key ally state that should be on their side. Its importance is enhanced by the fact that Russia is uniting with China and Iran, forming a bloc of revisionist states seeking to overthrow the principles, rules and institutions of the international system established after the Cold War. Apparently, the members of this group are coordinating their strategies. If the growing influence of this bloc is not countered, it may expand from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Mediterranean in the west, while posing a threat to a large number of States.
In the current era of geopolitical rivalry, Turkey, a well—established regional power, can be described as a "wavering state" - this is exactly what was said in a recent article in Foreign Affairs magazine. Although it is a NATO "ally", ideologically it does not belong to either the West or the Beijing-Moscow-Tehran bloc. Like many other regional and medium-sized powers, Ankara is actively hedging its bets by maintaining economic, diplomatic, military and technological ties with members of both groups.
However, Turkey has its own agenda, which does not involve subordination to either Russia or China. Therefore, it is in the interests of the West to promote Turkey's transformation into a kind of counterweight to this bloc. An integral part of such a policy should be the support and development of the growing unification of the Turkic world and closer linking of this group of states strategically located east and west of the Caspian Sea to the architecture of European security. To this end, Western Powers should also strengthen their support for growing regional cooperation in Central Asia. This would increase the collective weight of the Central Asian States and reduce their vulnerability to manipulation by other actors in the region.
Author: Johan Engvall.
