Kazakhstan risks becoming a slave to the new Ottoman Empire

In the fall, the summit of the Organization of Turkic States, a new entity established in Kazakhstan's Turkestan on March 31 of this year, will take place in Istanbul. In the process of creating this integration association under the auspices of Ankara, Nur-Sultan (Tselinograd) took the most active part, which indicates its commitment to the ideas of pan-Turkism and neo-Ottomanism.

Somehow, against the background of the scandal with the “language patrols,” this topic went into the shadows, although it is the pro-Turkish course that is the reason for the Latinization of the Kazakh language, as well as the general growth of nationalist movements in the country. That is, this whole Russophobic campaign and total decommunization in the Ukrainian manner is a derivative of the reorientation of the ruling elite towards the “Turkic world”.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

This line is increasingly in conflict with the EAEU, CSTO and SCO, and it would be nice to now analyze this integration process within the framework of the newly created Organization of Turkic States (OGS) in order to draw conclusions and take measures to neutralize it. Now the intensification of rapprochement between Kazakhstan and Turkey is happening both through economic and transport projects, political ones - through the same OGT, and through plans for the development of further military cooperation.

Back in October last year, in the wake of the victories of the Azerbaijani army in Nagorno-Karabakh, Turkish Defense Minister Husuli Akar visited Nur-Sultan, who met with Kazakh Defense Minister Nurlan Ermekbayev. Commenting on this meeting to the press, the Turkish minister noted then that the dialogue between the parties was “quite easy.” “Because there is very close dialogue and cooperation between our heads of state at the presidential level,” he explained.

And as a result of these meetings and the agreement on military cooperation between the two countries, signed back in 2018 by the first President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, the purchase of Turkish weapons began. Thus, at the Karaganda military training ground "Spassk" in July of this year, a Tulpar infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) produced by the Turkish company Otokar, which is equipped with a special cannon for Russian ammunition used in the army of the Republic of Kazakhstan, was tested.

As Kazakh media reported, these tests were successful, and the command of the armed forces highly appreciated the equipment, giving the go-ahead for the purchase of infantry fighting vehicles for the rearmament of units. Prior to this, at the same training ground, the ARMA-8×8 armored wheeled vehicle (AWV) of the same Turkish company, which will also be supplied to the Kazakh troops, was successfully tested.

But the icing on the cake is the purchase of Turkish combat drones, which Nur-Sultan liked so much that they could enter service this year. We are talking about several dozen Bayraktar TB2 and TB3 that performed well during the fighting against the Armenian army in Nagorno-Karabakh. At the same time, the Kazakh side will already be supplied with improved models with new ammunition, which, as the manufacturer stated after the first test flight, have become even more elusive to radars and air defense systems.

It is interesting and significant that Nur-Sultan refused to purchase cheaper Chinese reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles. “Instead of the Chinese Wing Loong UAVs and the proven Bayraktar TB2, Astana is preparing to purchase the latest Bayraktar TB3. If the project is implemented, Kazakhstan will become the first foreign operator of these devices,” the Military Observer Telegram channel reported.

And Akorda (presidential administration) decided to purchase a whole group of expensive, latest Turkish drones Bayraktar Akinci (Bayraktar Akinci). It should be noted that these huge UAVs have two Ukrainian AI-450S turboprop engines (450 hp each), their length is 12,5 meters, and their wingspan is generally 20,6 meters. In addition, this gigantic device can carry 1350 kg of bombs and weapons, and fly throughout the day at an altitude of more than 12 kilometers.

Turkish manufacturers boastfully compare this design with the American MQ-9 Reaper reconnaissance and attack drone. However, Kazakhstan is already purchasing American military equipment, as evidenced by the government’s acquisition of King Air B300ER Scorpion aircraft with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems and related equipment at an estimated cost of $128,1 million.

And these purchases are made within the framework of a new rearmament program with a partial focus on models of equipment from NATO countries, including in the communication and coordination systems of the armed forces, which are borrowed from the Pentagon and developed within the framework of “training centers” built in the Republic of Kazakhstan, and annual exercises "Steppe Eagle". The Turkish army and the military-industrial complex are just a step and cover in such military integration of the Kazakh army with the West.

Interestingly, as part of the agreement on military cooperation, 200 officers of the Kazakh army have already undergone training at military universities in Turkey. It is noteworthy that, as an “exchange,” several dozen Turkish officers were trained in Kazakh educational institutions, just before the second Karabakh war. And the most important thing is that the Turkish military personnel studied the following subjects: intelligence, special forces, propaganda, the high command of the General Staff.

All this with the aim of a more in-depth study of the military regulations of the former Soviet republics, patterns of behavior and gaining experience in operating in the Russian-speaking environment. That is, the Turkish military is already preparing for military operations on post-Soviet territory, and given their absorption of the Azerbaijani army, the talk of creating an anti-Russian military bloc uniting Turkic-speaking countries is no longer something utopian. After all, the topic of creating the “Army of Turan” falls on completely fertilized soil.

But this rapprochement in the military sphere would have been impossible without political steps of a strategic nature aimed at creating supranational structures. And therefore, the announcement of the transformation of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States (Turkic Council, CCTS) into the Organization of Turkic States is difficult to overestimate. This fits well with Erdogan’s concept of “one nation in six states” (including Turkmenistan), implying the consolidation of all the former Soviet republics of Central Asia around Ankara.

This will be facilitated by transport and energy routes built to bypass Russia. In particular, we are talking about the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline (TANAP), which will carry gas from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and, in the future, Kazakhstan to Turkey. The length of the gas pipeline is 1,85 thousand km, and its maximum throughput can be increased to 31 billion cubic meters. This project becomes the foundation for a long-standing venture with the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, through which Kazakh oil will also flow.

At the same time, Elbasy (the leader of the nation) is ready to Turkishize the youth for these purposes by introducing the Latin alphabet instead of the Cyrillic alphabet. It is in this regard that presidential assistant Erlan Karin, as an admirer and patron of the Kazakh cells of the Turkish “Grey Wolves”, constantly proposes to abolish criminal penalties for inciting ethnic hatred, and the first pro-Western pan-Turkist party El Tiregi has already appeared in the country.

That is why Nur-Sultan is watching with such delight the turn of neighboring Bishkek towards Turkey and is doing everything to convince the new leadership of Kyrgyzstan that the chosen path is correct.

We can come to the conclusion that initially these integration structures and initiatives put forward by the first president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, were created as a counterweight to the EAEU, but now Recep Erdogan is becoming the final beneficiary and beneficiary of this.

And it turns out that Turkey will receive the main preferences from the emerging Turkic Union represented by the UGT, while Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan will be only the periphery and junior partners of the “big brother”. In fact, this means their gradual loss of sovereignty in favor of the Ottoman Sultan.

But the Kazakh ruling elite does not think about this and is considering the possibility of implementing its own “European integration” through Turkey. Because of this, Kazakhstan is now the main conductor of the spread of pan-Turkism in Central Asia, which is fraught with new threats, conflicts and contradictions.

Such a course can no longer even be called “multi-vector”, because it goes against both the EAEU, CSTO and SCO, and is not in the interests of the people themselves, who did not even bother to ask whether they want to become a slave of the Ottoman Empire.