Turkic Economic Bloc: New Horizons of Cooperation

Wednesday, July 30, 2025, 12:59 "Turkic empires were historically located along the Great Silk Road" Economic ties among Turkic-speaking countries will continue to grow. Economist Iskender Sharsheev shared this view with Vesti.kg while commenting on the news about Georgia being invited to join the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway project and on negotiations between Turkey and Kazakhstan concerning the development of the Middle Corridor and the export of Kazakh hydrocarbons to the global market. “If the Zangezur Corridor is completed, the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway could become the optimal route for transporting goods from East to West. Such opportunities would play a positive role in uniting the economic zone of the Turkic states,” he said. The economist reminded that Kyrgyzstan, like the rest of Central Asia, has historically been at the heart of transportation and logistics routes. “Turkic empires were historically located along the Great Silk Road. These new projects could become part of a movement toward a kind of economic revival of the region in the modern world. Of course, the exact configuration of the economic and cultural Turan now being discussed is difficult to implement, but it is quite viable. The prosperity of the countries will help realize the idea of Turkic unity,” Sharsheev believes. Turkic-speaking countries are already successfully developing cooperation in several areas — economy, defense, and cultural exchange. Experts believe that such an approach could weaken the influence of traditional geopolitical leaders in Central Asia — China and Russia. In the current geopolitical environment, the logistics and transportation routes being developed by Central Asian states, such as the Middle Corridor and the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway, are attracting the attention of new participants. For example, Uzbekistan has proposed that Georgia take part in the railway project. Meanwhile, during his official visit to Turkey on July 28–29, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev discussed with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (Middle Corridor) and hydrocarbon supplies — for instance, increasing the volumes of Kazakh oil transported through the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, which passes through Turkey. https://vesti.kg/zxc/item/141633-tyurkskij-ekonomicheskij-blok-novye-gorizonty-sotrudnichestva.html