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- October 13, 202618°
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- October 13, 202618°
Visits by Greek Cypriot Administration leaders to Turkic world met with silence in Turkey
The official visits by the President of the Greek Cypriot Administration, Hristodoulou, to Kazakhstan, and by Foreign Minister Kombos to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, did not generate significant reaction in Turkish public opinion or official circles.
The state visit by Hristodoulou, whom we refer to as the President of the Greek Cypriot Administration but is recognized internationally as the President of Cyprus, to Kazakhstan in recent weeks, and the official visits by Foreign Minister Kombos to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, did not attract much attention from our public, which is currently preoccupied with a dense domestic agenda. Our official authorities also chose to overlook these visits.
Only a few commentators expressed disappointment that these visits were made to countries belonging to the Turkic world, with some going further to suggest this constituted a betrayal. However, the topic was forgotten within a day or two. These events revived an old memory of mine.
In the past, newly appointed ambassadors to Ankara would bring a copy of their credentials to a deputy undersecretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before presenting their letters of credence to the President. I do not know what the current practice is. In any case, the positions of undersecretary and deputy undersecretary were abolished in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as in all ministries, and were replaced by deputy ministers assumed to have a political role.
Formerly, deputy undersecretaries would receive these new ambassadors in turn or as their availability allowed. I recall performing this duty several times during Abdullah Gül's presidency. One day, the newly appointed ambassador of Turkmenistan came to visit me for this purpose. We conducted our conversation in English, as the ambassador, who was quite young and evidently well-educated outside his country, understood it.
At one point, while discussing the credentials ceremony, he said he would bring a Russian interpreter with him. When I remarked that it would not be appropriate for the Ambassador of Turkmenistan to speak Russian when received by the President of Turkey, he then said he would bring a Turkmen-Turkish interpreter instead. I indicated that this would be more suitable.
A day or two later, during the 20-25 minute reception by then-President Abdullah Gül, the ambassador indeed spoke in Turkmen, and his interpreter translated his words into our Turkish.
After the ceremony and meeting, according to the practice at the time, the newly appointed ambassador and embassy staff would be introduced in another room, at a small reception where sparkling wine was served and the President was not present, to the officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who would be most closely involved with relations with his country. Naturally, I do not know what the current practice is.
At this small reception, when I shared with the Ambassador that I had understood perhaps half of what he said in Turkmen during his meeting with the President, and had not understood the rest, the Ambassador asked in response whether I knew Russian. When I said I did not, he said that the so-called Turkmen language consists almost half of Russian words, and these are fully integrated into the spoken language.
We know this situation is also valid for the other Central Asian Turkic Republics, and therefore it is not surprising that their common language is Russian. This memory goes back 17-18 years, but I do not think the situation has changed much. On various occasions when I visited Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, I observed that even in written texts, when trying to read the signs I saw, the local language and Russian were mixed.
Although the Cyrillic alphabet is gradually giving way to the Latin alphabet in that geography, it is still in use. Another experience from that period was related to the Caspian Sea gas pipeline crossing. In those days, one of Turkey's important foreign policy goals was to make our country a transit route for transporting natural gas from Central Asia to Europe.
However, to transport Turkmen gas to Europe, a pipeline needed to be laid under the Caspian Sea, connecting Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan.
President Gül expended considerable effort for this purpose to bring Azerbaijan's President Aliyev and Turkmenistan's President Berdimuhamedov, who claimed the title 'Turkmenbashi', into the project and to help resolve the disputes between them, as their relations were not very good.
Accompanying him, I also attended a meeting of the three presidents held in the coastal town of Avaza, connected to the city of Turkmenbashi on Turkmenistan's Caspian coast. Berdimuhamedov not only claimed the title Turkmenbashi but also changed the name of this very ancient settlement. As a result of ongoing contacts, the dispute between Aliyev and Berdimuhamedov was reduced to a level that would not block the project.
However, this time, due to objections from Iran and Russia, the project has not been possible to realize to this day. Russia's perennial goal has been to be the sole route for hydrocarbon transit between Central Asia and Europe. Generally speaking, it is possible to say it has achieved this goal. Russia's weight in the region is naturally quite substantial.
In some, Kazakhstan foremost, Russians constitute almost half the population and continue to hold a significant place in the country's administrations. It is rumored that even during the Yeltsin period, Russia asked then-President Nazarbayev for the northern part of Kazakhstan, where the Russian population is dense.
Nazarbayev felt the need to move the country's capital from Almaty in the south to Astana, built almost from scratch in the north, in a very short time to correct the population balance. Like Berdimuhamedov, he also gave the city his own name, Nursultan, for a while, but later the city reverted to its previous name.
Borders left over from the Stalin era, which paid little heed to ethnic and geographical realities, have at times led these countries into hot conflicts with each other. Although in recent years we have not seen such conflicts occur. This is, of course, a situation to be pleased about.
Since Russia's attack on Ukraine, especially with Putin repeatedly and openly stating his desire to reclaim the territories of the former Soviet and Tsarist empires, this naturally makes these countries uneasy. The unreliability of Trump's America as a partner has led them to turn their attention to the European Union. There is nothing surprising in this. The EU has not remained indifferent to them either.
EU leaders, who had not set foot in our country for years, attended the first EU-Central Asia summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in April 2025. One of the EU's aims was also to prevent the sanctions imposed on Russia from being circumvented through these countries. After this summit, relations between Cyprus and these countries also warmed, and embassies began to be opened reciprocally. Hristodoulou and Kombos's trips should be viewed within this framework.
Effort to gain recognition for the TRNC did not succeed
Our country's effort to have the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) recognized by the Turkic Republics also did not meet with much success. Although most recently, the President of the TRNC was invited as an observer to a summit held in Kazakhstan, as mentioned above, it does not seem very possible under current conditions for these countries, which host Russian minorities on their soil, to recognize the TRNC, which they view as separatist.
Indeed, there is no need to remind that no country in the world other than our country recognizes the TRNC as a legitimate state. It is not possible to say that the Turkic states constitute a unified bloc. In fact, examining the webpage of the Secretariat of the Organization of Turkic States, headquartered in Istanbul, one can see activities such as facilitating trade.
Although all these countries are also members of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), headquartered in Tehran, which includes Iran and Pakistan, and which pursues similar goals and activities. Knowing the added value of these is not very easy unless one is an expert closely following the issues. There are also other organizations established around a common language.
The first that come to mind are the structures established by French, Spanish, and Portuguese-speaking countries, which engage in activities aimed more at strengthening cultural ties. It is not possible to say these have political weight or even ambition.
Years ago, while on an international assignment, I was invited to give a speech—in English, of course—at a meeting of the organization of Portuguese-speaking countries in Lisbon. I recall watching with a slight smile the disputes there, verging on rivalry, between Portugal and Brazil, which is many times larger. It is also not possible for French-speaking countries to play a common political role due to their different priorities.
Separate from these, it is well known that even the 22 members of the Arab League, despite having a common language not derived from a colonial past unlike others, have no common goal, and indeed several are in open or covert war with each other.
The Turkic world: Cooperation possibilities should be explored
One handicap of the Turkic states, as I tried to explain above, is the absence of a common language.
I think another characteristic is that after freeing themselves from the domination of their Soviet/Russian 'big brother', they do not wish to fall under the shadow of the Republic of Turkey. Even Azerbaijan, whose language is closest to ours, only allows Turkish television series it imports to be broadcast after they are dubbed into Azerbaijani.
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