In Central Asia, the Turkic nomads met up with the Muslim and Persian world.
Many Turks view the Uyghurs of Central Asia as fellow Turkic, Muslim brothers.
The Han Chinese are the country's dominant ethnic group, and the Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority who consider Xinjiang their homeland.
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Tajiks speak Persian, whereas Azeris, Turkmen, Uzbeks and Kazakhs speak Turkic languages.
The population is made up of mainly-Muslim Kabardins, as well as minorities of Turkic-speaking Balkars - around 10% of the people - and Russians.
Brotherly love between these two Turkic states has not stopped them squabbling for years over their maritime border and over nearby oil and gas prospects.
Relations between these Turkic allies took a dive in April when Turkey unveiled a draft agreement to establish diplomatic ties and reopen its border with Armenia.
The Uighurs, Turkic-speaking Muslims who, like the Tibetans, have spent the last two millennia struggling against the Han Chinese, are already a minority in their own land.
If Kazakhstan's government does not handle such feelings with care, it might find itself the focus of pan-Turkic wrath, or even facing its own problem with domestic terrorism.
All sides are agreed the Uighurs, who seek independence from China for their Turkic Muslim region, cannot be returned to China because they would face severe punishment or death.
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When Tatarstan, the core of the old Idel-Ural, tried to reintroduce the Latin alphabet in which the local Turkic language is most logically written, this was banned by the Kremlin.
In 1990, the Soviet republic of Kirghizia decided to change its official name to the Socialist Republic of Kyrgyzstan, a title recalling the ancient Turkic origins of many of its people.
Then I heard music coming from the direction of the main port, at first only the stuttering beat of bass notes, then, as I walked toward the music, the Turkic twang of a bouzouki.
The combination of lingering historical injustice and latent pan-Turkic nationalism provokes extreme hostility from Crimea's Russians, who make up about two-thirds of the peninsula's 2.7m people, whereas the Tatars number less than a tenth.
Although his country has not gained as much influence east of the Caspian as he hoped, it has made headway, helping such Turkic-speaking countries as Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to tilt their markets, especially in oil and gas, away from Russia and to the West.
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