Kazakhstan crisis challenges Turkey's leadership of Turkic union
The unrest rattling Kazakhstan has reflected the irrelevance of Turkey and the Organization of Turkic States chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey has faced a stark beginning to 2022. Its foreign policy, which appeared to be triumphant and very effective in 2021, is suffering a rough start to the new year amid a currency meltdown and skyrocketing inflation at home.
The unprecedented and violent protests that erupted in Kazakhstan on Jan. 2 betrayed Turkey’s assertive foreign policy flaws perhaps more vividly than any other incident over the past three years. Oddly, the protests have hardly received the attention it deserves in Turkey because of the country’s highly consuming domestic political and financial situation.
