Page 7 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.72, # 1, 2015, pp. 5-26

77,6 million, which has only smaller number of Sunni Muslims than Indonesia,

India and Pakistan. Unfortunately, this country is more densely populated in the

Western areas (Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir), what limits the development of trade

and people - to - people exchanges with South-Eastern neighbour Iran [2].

Besides, Turkey enjoys strong historical influence upon Turkish - speaking

countries. The Turkish languages represent a family of at least 35 languages with 170

million native speakers, but if to include the second-language speakers, the actual

number may exceed 200 million people [3]. This especially important with a regard to

Azerbaijan, which simultaneously is Shia - Muslim country like Iran, but has the

language related to Turkey. The same linguistic connection also typical for the majority

of Central Asian states. Iranian leadership boasts only language links to Tajikistan and

Afghanistan. Turkey opened a number of schools in the Central Asia and built

numerous mosques. So, the ability to project the soft power is considerably bigger in

Turkey than is Iran, hit by the international sanctions and isolated in the world.

Together with Iraq and Syria Iran and Turkey face long - standing Kurdish

problem, since Kurds live in South-Eastern Anatolia and in Iranian provinces of

Kurdistan, Kemranshah and West Azerbaijan. Iran is populated by 5 million Kurds

and Turkey hosts at least 12 million of them [4]. Those people in Iran usually do not

conduct guarilla warfare, but in Anatolia they fought for their rights from 1984 in

the war of attrition that led to 40 thousands casualities [5]. Moreover, both countries

try to influence Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan as in a strategic region ajecent to their

common border. All this creates nessesary preconditions not only for the

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