Turks see space travel as 21st century Silk Road

Now advancing in the 21st century, the world has six independent Turkic countries that speak a descendent of the ancient Turkic lingua franca: Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Turkish Cyprus should also be mentioned; although it is still not recognized by its independent 'brothers' and thus was not represented around the table that united the Turkish leaders in Antalya.

Coming together after five years, though some of them were absent, the leaders of the Turkish-speaking countries once again declared their goodwill along with a call for cooperation. The most tangible suggestions came from Nazarbayev. He suggested that some Turkish institutions, such as the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) and the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM), should pioneer cooperation in their fields, thus indirectly assigning a 'big brother' status to Turkey. After recalling Ataturk's words that "A Turk's only friends are Turks," he suggested reviving a historical Turkic institution called "the Council of the White-Bearded Men." According to him, the representatives of political, art and social groups could gather in this council. The Kazakh president offered the ninth Turkish President Suleyman Demirel, which mentioned the importance of resurrecting the Silk Road again and revealing his willingness to share his country's experience in space projects, and said: "We have launched our first ground satellite. We can work in this direction together."

Coming together in the family photograph, the leaders looked happy and took their leave as if to say "let's not be strangers for this long again." Nazarbayev's call is still ringing in the ears: "Let us turn the 21st century, without decelerating, into the century of Turkish union and development as dreamt by Ataturk."

Strangely enough, I could not even say "welcome" in Turkish to a Kazakh journalist sitting opposite of me. We could not understand each other. I asked him if he knew English, and he said, "Let's speak Russian." The 'brother' leaders around the table were able to understand one another only via the headphones for simultaneous translation. There are exceptions, though. While Ilham Aliyev, the Azeri president, was speaking to Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the Turkish president did not use headphones and when the Kyrgyz president was speaking Nazarbayev did not use them. Zaman