Kazakhstan operates a strategic rapprochement with Turkey

The celebrations of 30 years of independence had barely ended when Kazakhstan signed a security agreement on December 22, 2021 with its former overlord. On that day, the Kazakh parliament ratified a document focusing on cooperation with Russia in cybersecurity, intelligence and the fight against terrorism. On paper, the agreement mirrors what Moscow is trying to impose on its Central Asian backyard: no American bases or collaboration with NATO, in a context of acute crisis around the Ukraine where Moscow demands that the Transatlantic Organization withdraw from the former Soviet republics.

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But recent Kazakh foreign policy guidelines suggest the deal acts as an appetite suppressant for a Russia in a hurry to emerge as a superpower. In 2021, Kazakhstan acquired drones and armor from Turkey, a NATO country. On December 7, 2021, the Kazakh defense ministry renewed a five-year military cooperation agreement with the United States. Earlier, in October, Noursoultan, the capital, signed for military cooperation in 2022 with Italy – another NATO member.

The fact that Kazakhstan is a founding member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance dominated by Moscow, does not prevent the country from looking elsewhere. To Turkey in particular, which has been working for a year to develop the Organization of Turkic States (OET), an embryo of union created in 2009 and revived since, bringing together five former satellite countries of the USSR in Central Asia and the Caucasus. These countries have a great linguistic and cultural proximity with Turkey, and their populations embrace, in their great majority, the Moslem religion.

Rapprochement with Turkey

“Our goal is to make the Turkish world one of the most important economic, cultural and humanitarian regions of the XXIe century “, declared Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at an OET summit in March 2021. In the future, the economic alliance will certainly turn into a political and military alliance, predicts the Kazakh political scientist Dossym Satpaïev: “Turkey has shown itself to be a key player [dans le conflit du] Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, it has strong arguments in the eyes of OET members. Now everything revolves around two things: economy and security. “ The Pan-Turkish alliance is already planning to set up a structure for rapid reaction to disasters, operating with military means.

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