Erdogan’s new Ottoman empire advances in the Caucasus and Central Asia
Vladimir Rozanskij

Russia has only obtained a fragile armistice in Nagorno Karabakh, and was forced to cede the role of main protagonist of the Caucasian games on the border between Europe and Asia. The influence of Turkey, which explicitly supported the Azeris in word and deed, has instead expanded: at the very least, now in the Caucasus it is equal to that of the Russians.

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On 27 October 2020, in the wake of the euphoria after the Azerbaijani victory in Nagorno Karabakh, the Turkiye newspaper released a special issue with the appeal to the “Decision of the Turanian Army”: it imagines a pan-Turkish army formed from Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (the Tajiks, however, are of Iranian origin, ed).