Eurasia in Balance: The Us and the Regional Power Shift by Ariel Cohen

Author:Ariel Cohen [Cohen, Ariel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, International Relations, General, Security (National & International)
ISBN: 9780754644491
Google: NDduAAAAMAAJ
Goodreads: 1461026
Publisher: Ashgate
Published: 2005-01-15T08:41:03+00:00

Obstacles to Panturkist Policy

Panturkist idealism among those in Turkey who became involved in Central Asian affairs after the Cold War often went outside the bounds of the traditionally conservative, if not timid, Turkish foreign policy. Turkish Panturkists not only supported opposition movements in Uzbekistan such as the Erk and Birlik political parties, but also the ethnic Uighur nationalists seeking independence of the Xinjiang region from China. In the mid-1990s, Turkish Islamists supported the various Wahhabi Islamic fundamentalist movements in the Central Asian states, including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a banned Islamic opposition party which advocates the forceful overthrow of President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan and the establishment of a caliphate or Islamic state. The IMU flourished in and around the Ferghana Valley, straddling Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, as the most propitious territory in Central Asia for establishing a caliphate, given the porousness of this region's borders, its precarious ethnic mix, its extreme poverty and the prevalence of a devout Muslim population. The IMU was placed on the US State Department's Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) list in 2000. In 1997, Turkey hosted the fourth meeting of the Turkish Nations Assembly, a worldwide gathering of Panturkists, where Uzbekistan was represented by the leaders of the Birlik party, some of whom were in exile abroad. They were supported by the Turkish Islamist Refah (Welfare) – Dogru Yol (True Path) coalition government, and in particular by the Turkish Minister holding the portfolio for relations with the Turkic nations, Ahad Andijan, an ethnic Uzbek himself.6 President Islam Karimov declared Andijan, who had been supporting the opposition parties in Uzbekistan since the 1991 elections, persona non grata in Uzbekistan.7 Another Uzbek opposition leader, Mohammad Saleh of the Erk party, lived in Turkey from 1994, enjoying a close relationship with veteran Turkish politician and fellow poet, Bulent Ecevit. Karimov accused Saleh and his Erk followers of carrying out terrorist training in Turkey and of being behind the February 1999 bombings in Tashkent, which killed sixteen people. According to Saleh, "ten days before the explosions, a group headed by the deputy chairman of the National Security Service of Uzbekistan arrived in Turkey, and asked permission for Turkish officials to arrest Uzbek terrorists."8 Saleh was asked to leave Turkey and subsequently settled in Norway.

In July 1997, the Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan (deposed in a quasi-coup in 1998) met with Tahir Yoldashev, the leader of IMU and allegedly gave him 100,000 dollars. A photograph of the meeting was later presented as evidence by Turkish prosecutors when they sued to have the Refah party banned for anti-secular activities.9 Another downside to Refah's affinity with the Wahhabi movements in Central Asia was their shutting down of Turkish support to General Abdurrashid Dostum, the ethnic Uzbek leader of the anti-Taliban Afghan militia, Junbish-e Milli. Coupled with the betrayal of Dostum's deputy Abdulmalik Pahlawan (who also sought Turkish help later), the lack of support from Ankara contributed to the fall of Mazar-e Sharif into the Taliban's hands in May 1997 and a mass slaughter of the Turkic people in the area.

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