Turkey has been much in the news lately, most recently with the suicide bombing at the very heart of Istanbul. Its relation with Syria, Islamic State, Europe, and Russia has properly been the focus of attention in past months. But even in times of crisis, an observer needs to keep longer stories and trends also in view. One slower-burn story I’ve been following concerns Turkey’s relation with the Muslim-majority states in Central Asia. The so-called “stans” (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan) were part of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991. Their native populations are mostly Turkic, …read more
Source: The Huffington Post
