Recent clashes between civilians, border guards and troops of Central Asian nations Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan over a long-standing water dispute have resulted in the deaths of over 30 people, the wounding of 150 and the displacement of more than 10,000.
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are members of the Russian-led Collective Treaty Security Organization (CSTO), which did nothing to defend member Armenia in the Turkish-Azerjbaijani military onslaught against hopelessly outnumbered Nagorno-Karabakh last year. Russian officials went out of their way to claim that as Nagorno-Karabakh was not part of Armenia the CSTO had no obligation to defend it. Even after a Russian military helicopter was shot down and two of its crew killed by Azerbaijan over Armenian territory. Employing the same logic, Russia should not have intervened when Georgia invaded South Ossetia in 2008, nor express any concern over the fate of the people of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics in the Donbass. South Ossetia and the Donbass republics also aren’t members of the CSTO.
Although one might expect the CSTO to be the ideal mechanism for discussing disputes between two of its member states, the only organization that has issued a statement on the conflict is the Turkish-controlled Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States, better known as the Turkic Council, consisting of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan considers itself a Turkic nation; Tajikistan speaks an Iranian language related to Farsi and Dari.
The secretary general of the Turkic Council, Baghdad Amreev, today called on both sides to desist from further violence, citing the religious backdrop of Ramadan, and stated, “The Turkic Council will continue to maintain close contact with brotherly Kyrgyzstan, a founding member of the Turkic Council, on this issue.” One can’t expect the Turkic Council and its member states, especially Turkey, to remain neutral in the conflict.
At the beginning of the year the leaders of the Turkic Council held an informal virtual conference and issued a declaration which proclaimed the city of Turkistan [in Kazakhstan] “a spiritual capital of the Turkic World,” and that “other prominent ancient cities of the Turkic world might be accorded with similar statuses on a rotating basis in the future.” The participants also applauded the preparation of the Turkic World Vision – 2040 document. Intriguing title to be sure.
Last month the same Amreev said to a meeting of Turkic Council personnel: “We are very glad that Azerbaijan has liberated its de-occupied territories. We, the Turkic states, express our solidarity with Azerbaijan.” He was of course referring to the Turkish-backed war against Nagorno-Karabakh last year. A 44-day war that was celebrated in a victory ceremony in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, in December where Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was the guest of honor.
Also last month Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, posed in combat garb in a so-called War Trophy Park amid the helmets of slain Nagorno-Karabakh defenders. His government proudly released a photograph of that event to news agencies around the world, one that to a healthy mind would be grotesque if not ghoulish. On the occasion of the opening of the museum he said: “We have created a new reality. We created it by shedding blood, showing courage, driving out the enemy. Today everyone should reckon with us and will reckon with us.”
He not only celebrated his dubious success against a largely defenseless opponent, but revealed the pan-Turkic motive of the war in these words: “Our Victory is not only the victory of our people, the entire Turkic world is proud of it.”
The Kyrgyz government and armed forces are aware of Aliyev’s statement as they are of Amreev’s. With sponsors like Azerbaijan and Turkey – whose slogan is one nation, two states – and their combined population of 95 million, Kyrgyzstan has little reason to negotiate with Tajikistan, which has no one to defend it. Surely not the CSTO.
If anyone in Tajikistan thinks otherwise, they may want to read these words of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov of two days ago:
“Turkey and Turkey’s commitment to its independent course of development…this is a subject of US concern and the way the United States is trying to raise its voice at Ankara…obviously indicate that Washington does not like how [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is confidently leading Turkey forward and that they would prefer a more compliant Turkey.”
After successful and mainly uncontested Turkish military actions in Iraq, Syria and Libya; proxy roles in the armed conflicts in the South Caucasus and Yemen; ongoing territorial disputes with Greece and support for its Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus client against the Cypriot government in Nicosia, why not move further east into Central Asia? Neo-Ottoman aspirations are being realized in the Middle East and North Africa, and the pan-Turkic road lies open to the Chinese border.
Rick Rozoff is a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He has been involved in anti-war and anti-interventionist work in various capacities for forty years. He lives in Chicago, Illinois. He is the manager of Stop NATO. This originally appeared at Anti-Bellum.
