"Turkey's EU Membership's Impacts on the Central Asia
View: Dr. Sedat Laciner
Central Asian republic, namely, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, are mostly Turkic countries. They have great similarities with Turkey in terms of ethnic, cultural, and religious composition. In addition to former-Soviet Central Asia, there is also a substantial Turkic population in Afghanistan. The Uighur Region in China, on the eastern sector of the region, is home to the Uighur Turks. As a matter of fact, the common historical name for Central Asia has been Turkistan. Known to be the homeland of present-day Anatolian Turks, the region has very vivid linguistic, religious and cultural ties with Turkey. These ties have surfaced very strongly with the collapse of the USSR. With the end of the Cold War, labeling the area covering Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Central Asia as the �Turkish world� points to the power of these ties."
More:The Journal of Turkish Weekly