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ISTANBUL (Hurriyet)\u2013Delegates from Turkic countries gathered Thursday in Istanbul at the World Turkic Forum to highlight the common ties among their countries while promoting steps toward the creation of a more overarching Turkic identity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a globalized world, we want to spread our message to the world as Turkic citizens,\u201d said Nazim Ibrahimov, Azerbaijan\u2019s Diaspora minister.<\/p>\n
Participants made many references to the Silk Road and military conquests in the same breath as goals for the countries to unite under a common set of values.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main target of the forum is to improve our values, expand our national values and make them international,\u201d said Mahir Yagcilar, the minister of environment for Kosovo, which has a sizeable Turkish population. \u201cThe Turkish Republic is the mainland.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahat And\u0131can, a former state minister and professor at Istanbul University, echoed Ibrahimov\u2019s call, saying: \u201cIn the 21st century, we will be the part [of the world] that is shaping the world. We should. We must.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many proposed that Turkey adopt the role of steward and leader for the Turkic world. But the idea didn\u2019t receive unanimous support, with some delegates raising issues with the notion.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur main problem is that we can\u2019t put forward a country as the regional leader. We lack a regional state that will pile up the other countries under its roof,\u201d said Fazil Mustafa, a member of the Azerbaijan National assembly.<\/p>\n
Turkey, in the past, had been unable to fulfill this role, Mustafa said, citing as evidence the country\u2019s inability to prevent the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh from breaking free from Azeri rule.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Hakan Kirimli of Bilkent University said Turkey\u2019s most important task was to first protect the Turkic diaspora within its own borders, including Tatars, Kazakhs, Turkmens, and people from the Caucasus, Crimea, and the Balkan area.<\/p>\n
He said many of these diaspora groups in Turkey actually outnumber the population of their groups in their own homelands. \u201cProtecting those societies means protecting a whole culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pinar Akcali from Middle East Technical University said Turkey\u2019s improving relationship with Turkic countries was partly the result of its deteriorating relationship with the West and added that such a trend would give Turkey a chance to develop its relations with other parts of the world, including the Turkic one.<\/p>\n
Although some Turkic countries are performing well economically and others have the benefit of natural resources, many Turkic countries are not particularly rich economically, according to Mustafa. \u201cThe 21st century, in terms of the economy, will not be a Turkic century,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
There are also many political problems between Turkic countries, with Hasan Ali Karasar calling attention to the brutal violence that has sporadically occurred between the local Uzbek community and ethnic Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor four years we have been discussing how to improve inter-Turkic relations,\u201d said Karasar. \u201cStill the government [of Kyrgyzstan] has not been effective. The Kyrgyz president made some important steps. Luckily we have stopped the violence \u2013 for now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISTANBUL (Hurriyet)\u2013Delegates from Turkic countries gathered Thursday in Istanbul at the World Turkic Forum to highlight the common ties among their countries while promoting steps toward the creation of a more overarching Turkic identity. \u201cIn a globalized world, we want to spread our message to the world as Turkic citizens,\u201d said Nazim Ibrahimov, Azerbaijan\u2019s Diaspora […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":24379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,178,213,1551,764],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-azerbaijan","category-kazakhstan","category-kyrgyzstan","category-turkmenistan-central-asia-asiapacific-regions","category-uzbekistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}