Turkey has launched a fresh campaign to win over the hearts and minds of its ethnic cousins in the former Soviet Turkic states. This time round, the Turks hope to win them over not with idealistic notions of common ethnicity, but by helping Central Asian leaders quell what many see as a mounting threat from Islamic rebels.

Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer signed separate military cooperation agreements with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan during a mid-October tour of four Central Asian nations that also included stops in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

Under the agreements, Turkish officers will provide training for both the Uzbek and Kyrgyz armies. Turkey has already sent two plane loads of light weaponry and ammunition to Uzbekistan destined for border guards patrolling the country's 75-mile-long (130 kilometer) frontier with Afghanistan. Militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) reportedly maintain bases under the protection of the Taliban, which controls up to 95 percent of Afghan territory. The military assistance, played down as "symbolic" by Turkish officials, nonetheless marks a new era in Turkey's relations with the Central Asian states.

For Uzbekistan's President, Islam Karimov, Turkish overtures could not have been more timely. The Uzbek leader has been resisting Russia's offers of military help out of concern that such aid would help Russia enhance its influence not only in Uzbekistan, but across Central Asia. Washington is equally supportive of the Turkish initiative for much the same reason. It sees Turkey as an effective counter-balance to both Russian and Iranian influence in the oil rich region.

Even Russia, which has long accused Turkey of supporting the Chechen separatists and assorted other foes of the Kremlin, has remained unusually silent, not least because it too is worried by the encroachment of Taliban-backed forces in Central Asia.

With its success at home in crushing both Kurdish separatist guerrillas and Islamic activists, both of the violent and peaceful kind, Turkey is well placed to help the Central Asian states. In extending military aid, Ankara may finally gain real influence in the region. That has been Turkey's goal since ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of the Muslim Turkic states in Central Asia and the Caucasus. During the early 1990s, Turkey's then President, Suleyman Demirel, declared that his country would lead a "Turkic world stretching from the Adriatic Sea to the Great Wall of China."

Nearly 10 years later, there are few signs that Turkey has come anywhere near what most Turkish officials now readily admit was a farfetched goal, particularly given Russia's continuing regional clout. True, thousands of small Turkish entrepreneurs have set up thriving businesses throughout the Central Asian republics. Turkish contractors have erected impressive hotels and conference halls. But the jewel in the strategic crown, pipelines to carry Central Asia and Azerbaijan's vast reserves of oil and natural gas running through Turkey to Western markets, has hit snags, not least, Turkish officials complain, because of America's outright refusal to finance the project.

For all that, most Central Asian leaders continue to laud Turkey's unremittingly pro-Western democracy as a role model. They also hail Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish state. In private, though, many are said to resent the Turks' patronizing attitude. And despite Turkey's inexorably pro-secular credentials, some have gone so far as to accuse the Ankara government of lending its support to their Islamic opponents. None has been quite as vocal on that score as the prickly Karimov.

Karimov suggested an assassination attempt in February 1999 had been planned in Turkey. A furious Karimov ordered hundreds of Uzbek students in Turkey to return home, claiming they were being brainwashed by Islamic radicals there. In Uzbekistan he shut down a handful of Turkish schools run by a Muslim brotherhood called the Fetullahcis and ordered out hundreds of Turkish businessmen.

Karimov's ire was fueled in large part by the sanctuary that Turkey offered to one of his leading opponents, Salih Muhammed. A self-proclaimed liberal who disavows violence, Muhammed was spotted in Afghanistan together with the Uzbek Islamic rebel leader Tohir Yoldashov shortly after the attacks in Tashkent. Muhammad has since been denied re-entry to Turkey. So have other Uzbek dissidents.

Turkey's renewed crackdown on it own Islamic radicals at the behest of its chronically meddlesome military has helped ease Karimov's concerns. Among the Turkish generals' latest targets are the Fetullahcis. Their leader, a Muslim cleric named Fetullah Gulen, was formally charged by a state security court last month of setting up "an armed Islamic gang." A delighted Karimov told Sezer in Tashkent last week that "Anyone who is an enemy of Ataturk is an enemy of mine."

Detractors of Turkey's new policy point out, however, that in helping Central Asia's authoritarian and increasingly unpopular leaders quell their opponents, Turkey risks becoming despised among the very people they are seeking to win over. "Turkey will not get very far by bragging about exporting its secular regime," wrote Akif Emre, a columnist for the pro-Islamic daily Yeni Safak. "Neither by backing dictators who appoint themselves presidents for life, nor by colluding in their suppression of all freedoms."

Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer signed separate military cooperation agreements with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan during a mid-October tour of four Central Asian nations that also included stops in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

Under the agreements, Turkish officers will provide training for both the Uzbek and Kyrgyz armies. Turkey has already sent two plane loads of light weaponry and ammunition to Uzbekistan destined for border guards patrolling the country's 75-mile-long (130 kilometer) frontier with Afghanistan. Militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) reportedly maintain bases under the protection of the Taliban, which controls up to 95 percent of Afghan territory. The military assistance, played down as "symbolic" by Turkish officials, nonetheless marks a new era in Turkey's relations with the Central Asian states.

For Uzbekistan's President, Islam Karimov, Turkish overtures could not have been more timely. The Uzbek leader has been resisting Russia's offers of military help out of concern that such aid would help Russia enhance its influence not only in Uzbekistan, but across Central Asia. Washington is equally supportive of the Turkish initiative for much the same reason. It sees Turkey as an effective counter-balance to both Russian and Iranian influence in the oil rich region.

Even Russia, which has long accused Turkey of supporting the Chechen separatists and assorted other foes of the Kremlin, has remained unusually silent, not least because it too is worried by the encroachment of Taliban-backed forces in Central Asia.

With its success at home in crushing both Kurdish separatist guerrillas and Islamic activists, both of the violent and peaceful kind, Turkey is well placed to help the Central Asian states. In extending military aid, Ankara may finally gain real influence in the region. That has been Turkey's goal since ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of the Muslim Turkic states in Central Asia and the Caucasus. During the early 1990s, Turkey's then President, Suleyman Demirel, declared that his country would lead a "Turkic world stretching from the Adriatic Sea to the Great Wall of China."

Nearly 10 years later, there are few signs that Turkey has come anywhere near what most Turkish officials now readily admit was a farfetched goal, particularly given Russia's continuing regional clout. True, thousands of small Turkish entrepreneurs have set up thriving businesses throughout the Central Asian republics. Turkish contractors have erected impressive hotels and conference halls. But the jewel in the strategic crown, pipelines to carry Central Asia and Azerbaijan's vast reserves of oil and natural gas running through Turkey to Western markets, has hit snags, not least, Turkish officials complain, because of America's outright refusal to finance the project.

For all that, most Central Asian leaders continue to laud Turkey's unremittingly pro-Western democracy as a role model. They also hail Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish state. In private, though, many are said to resent the Turks' patronizing attitude. And despite Turkey's inexorably pro-secular credentials, some have gone so far as to accuse the Ankara government of lending its support to their Islamic opponents. None has been quite as vocal on that score as the prickly Karimov.

Karimov suggested an assassination attempt in February 1999 had been planned in Turkey. A furious Karimov ordered hundreds of Uzbek students in Turkey to return home, claiming they were being brainwashed by Islamic radicals there. In Uzbekistan he shut down a handful of Turkish schools run by a Muslim brotherhood called the Fetullahcis and ordered out hundreds of Turkish businessmen.

Karimov's ire was fueled in large part by the sanctuary that Turkey offered to one of his leading opponents, Salih Muhammed. A self-proclaimed liberal who disavows violence, Muhammed was spotted in Afghanistan together with the Uzbek Islamic rebel leader Tohir Yoldashov shortly after the attacks in Tashkent. Muhammad has since been denied re-entry to Turkey. So have other Uzbek dissidents.

Turkey's renewed crackdown on it own Islamic radicals at the behest of its chronically meddlesome military has helped ease Karimov's concerns. Among the Turkish generals' latest targets are the Fetullahcis. Their leader, a Muslim cleric named Fetullah Gulen, was formally charged by a state security court last month of setting up "an armed Islamic gang." A delighted Karimov told Sezer in Tashkent last week that "Anyone who is an enemy of Ataturk is an enemy of mine."

Detractors of Turkey's new policy point out, however, that in helping Central Asia's authoritarian and increasingly unpopular leaders quell their opponents, Turkey risks becoming despised among the very people they are seeking to win over. "Turkey will not get very far by bragging about exporting its secular regime," wrote Akif Emre, a columnist for the pro-Islamic daily Yeni Safak. "Neither by backing dictators who appoint themselves presidents for life, nor by colluding in their suppression of all freedoms."