Abstract

This paper examines Türkiye's diplomatic and cultural engagement with Xinjiang's Turkic Muslim communities between 1933 and 1949, drawing on recently declassified documents from the Ankara-based Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Diplomatic Archives of Turkey. Challenging prevailing assumptions in the literature that characterize Türkiye's Xinjiang policy as primarily driven by pan-Turkist or pan-Islamist ideological commitments, this study argues that geostrategic calculations consistently took precedence over ideological solidarity throughout the period under review.

The paper traces Türkiye's evolving diplomatic posture across three distinct historical junctures. The first concerns Türkiye's response to the Turkic Islamic Republic of East Turkestan (1933–1935), during which Ankara carefully distanced itself from the republic's pan-Islamist overtones while quietly monitoring developments through its diplomatic missions in China, Japan, and Afghanistan. The second juncture focuses on the role of individual diplomatic actors — most notably Mesud Sabri Baykozi and the figures collectively known as the "Three Effendis" — whose relationships with Turkish diplomatic representatives reveal the instrumentalization of cultural and linguistic affinity for strategic ends rather than ideological kinship. The third juncture examines the Second East Turkestan Republic (1944–1949), a Soviet-backed government that placed Türkiye in an acute geopolitical dilemma: how to navigate between Soviet expansionism, Chinese territorial sovereignty, and emerging American strategic interests in the region.

A central contribution of this paper is its analysis of Türkiye's cultural diplomacy as a foreign policy instrument. Far from reflecting a coherent pan-Turkist vision, Ankara's cultural outreach toward Xinjiang's Turkic communities functioned as a flexible tool calibrated to the shifting demands of Cold War alignment. As Türkiye transitioned from cautious neutrality during World War II to full integration into the Western bloc through NATO membership, its approach to Xinjiang was reframed accordingly — with the Uyghur diaspora increasingly positioned as an asset in the broader contest against Soviet influence.

By situating Türkiye's Xinjiang policy within the longue durée of its post-Ottoman foreign policy formation, this paper contributes to ongoing debates at the intersection of diplomatic history, minority politics, and Cold War geopolitics in Central Eurasia. It also offers a methodological argument for the indispensability of underutilized Turkish-language archival sources in the study of the region's modern history.