Pan-Turkism

Main article: Turkey

Organizations

• Grey Wolves (Bozkurt)
• TIKA (Turkish Agency for Cooperation and Development)

2024

Renaming of Central Asia to Turkestan in Turkish textbooks

In October 2024, the Turkish Ministry of Education announced fundamental changes to the history curriculum. The term "Central Asia" was replaced by "Turkestan" in order to strengthen national identity among future generations.

Turkish President Recep Erdogan noted that the work will be carried out shoulder to shoulder with the countries of the region in order to make the upcoming period the era of the Turks as part of the vision of the "Century of Turkey" in the Organization of Turkic States.

According to Turkish experts, these changes are part of a "broader strategy to strengthen ties and unity in the Turkic world, including the creation of a common history, literature, maps and alphabet."

In past centuries, the region of Central Asia was called about the same. During the Russian Empire, there was a Turkestan governor general, and only in the 1920s the term "Central Asia" came into use.

The countries of the Organization of Turkic States agreed on a single alphabet based on the Latin alphabet

In September 2024, the countries of the Organization of Turkic States (OTG) agreed on a single alphabet based on the Latin alphabet of 34 letters. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan insisted on the early adoption of a single alphabet earlier, at the OTG summit in Shusha.

2023

Textbooks for secondary school: "General Turkic History," "General Turkic Literature" and "Geography of the Turkic World"

In 2023, the Turkic Academy (an international organization created under the auspices of OTG) completed a project to create unified textbooks for secondary school: "General Turkic History," "General Turkic Literature" and "Geography of the Turkic World."

Back in June 2022, the Ministers of Education and Science of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan signed (https://www.inform.kz/ru/mezhdunarodnaya-tyurkskaya-akademiya-utverdila-obschie-uchebniki_a3948397) a protocol on the gradual introduction of these textbooks into schools. Prior to this, "General Turkic History" was taught as an optional program in the 8th grade of schools in Turkey, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

Support for the "Council of United Cherkessia" to "create an independent state in the North Caucasus"

In August 2023, a conference organized by The Council of United Circassia is being held in Istanbul.

The foreign diaspora of Circassians, together with curators, discusses the creation of an independent state in the North Caucasus, "relying on the norms of international law."

The agenda includes items on the possible role of independent Cherkessia in ensuring security in the Black Sea and Eastern Europe, as well as on the recognition of the "genocide of the Circassians" by different countries.

The chairman of the "Council" is Turkish Circassian Kenan Kaplan. After the collapse of the USSR, he was unable to obtain Russian citizenship and settled in Turkey, actively cooperating with separatists and promoting the ideas of pan-Turkism.

In the republic, he founded the Pluralistic Democratic Party (Çoğulcu Demokrasi Partisi, CDP). However, after a speech by part of the party against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, relations between supporters broke down.

Kaplan claimed that the reason for the appearance of the party was that 6 million "pure" Circassians live in Turkey and another two million those who have a relationship with this ethnic group on their paternal or maternal side.

Kaplan repeatedly visited Crimea and met with the chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people Mustafa Dzhemiloglu (Mustafa Dzhemilev). In addition, he, together with the Turkish Agency for Cooperation and Development (TIKA), initiated a project to restore 16 Crimean national schools.

Mustafa Dzhemilev is a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, who is associated with President Erdogan and the US government. In 2014, he opposed the annexation of Crimea to Russia and became one of the initiators of its economic blockade by Ukraine. In addition, he called for the introduction of UN peacekeeping troops on the peninsula. In the Russian Federation, a criminal case was initiated against Dzhemilev, who was put on the federal wanted list, under three articles related to terrorism and undermining the foundations of the country's state security.

2021: Map of the "Turkic world" presented to Turkish President Erdogan

In November 2021, the chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party and former Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Devlet Bahceli presented Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with a map of the so-called "Turkic world," which, in addition to Turkey, included Azerbaijan states Turkestan, a significant part,,,, and the Russia China Iran Afghanistan Mongolia Balkan Peninsula.

2019: The rise of pan-Turkism in Russia

By 2019, the percentage of those people who are nostalgic for Turkey is growing in the North Caucasus. Turkish President Erdogan wins the hearts of young people with his harsh statements and verbal support for oppressed Muslims, it is enough to recall his statements regarding events in Myanmar and Palestine.

Also religiously directed youth sympathize with the speeches of the Turkish leader, in which he skillfully uses excerpts from scripture. This has a colossal effect on the younger generation.

Dagestan is located in close proximity to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Turkey itself.

An important factor is the national composition of the North Caucasus Federal District, which consists of a third of the Turkic peoples. If in Dagestan the Kumyks, Nogais, Tatars, Azerbaijanis, and some other nationalities are considered Turkic-speaking, then in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic the first largest ethnic group is Turkic-speaking, in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, in turn, the second largest ethnic group is Turkic-speaking. A large number of Nogais, Tatars and Turkmens live in the Stavropol Territory. Nogais also live in Chechnya and Karachay-Cherkessia.

As of June 2019, these peoples do not create any associations and do not play the ideas of "pan-Turkism" but much depends on the work in this direction of both Russia and other countries, which, due to different circumstances, may be beneficiaries of this process.

Flags and distribution of all existing Turkic ethnic groups in the world.

The problem of "pan-Turkism" also remains relevant for Ingushetia and Chechnya.

It is no secret that separatists from Chechnya fled to Turkey, where they live compactly in the Bashakshehir region of Istanbul. There they also have transshipment points, safe houses, where militants are treated, house families and rest from hostilities in Syria with the tacit consent of the Turkish authorities.

The situation changed somewhat after the attempted coup d'état, in which immigrants from the North Caucasus took an active part on the side of the conspirators. The Turkish police then staged raids to search for the Caucasians, but as the situation stabilized, everything returned to "normal." Turkey benefits from Caucasians dissatisfied with the policy of the Russian Federation, whom they actively use in their interests.

Also, groups of Meskhetian Turks (Georgian Turks from Meskhetia) live in RI and CR, on which Turkey attempts to influence by allocating preferences and repatriation, and also uses them to promote the ideas of "pan-Turkism" in the North Caucasus and Georgia.

2009: Foundation of Turkic Council

Turkey's geopolitical ambitions fit into the concept of the Turkic Council, officially founded in 2009. It involves uniting all Turkic-speaking countries of the region, following the already joined states - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey itself.