ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of Turkey’s renewed interest in the Caucasus and Central Asia. It starts with discussing the new geopolitical trends in Eurasia, with a focus on how Ankara has perceived them. Ankara welcomes China’s grand economic projects, as it expects to increase its economic connectivity with Eurasia. It also expects the Belt and Road Initiative to contribute to Turkish exports and investments in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Then the chapter analyses Turkey’s initiatives to institutionalize its ties with countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia. The most important among those initiatives are the Turkic Council, which was established in 2009, and the various trilateral cooperation mechanisms that Turkey formed together with Azerbaijan. The chapter then continues with discussing Turkey’s economic ties with the region, which remained miniscule compared to the Turkish economic activism elsewhere. No deep form of regionalism exists between Turkey and the states of the region, while Ankara preserves its efforts to enhance mutual understanding and strengthen the foundations of its presence in post-Soviet Eurasia. The third section examines Turkey’s bilateral ties with Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, since they are the two most significant countries in terms of Turkish foreign policy towards the region.
