The popular newspaper Israel Hayom published a report on Wednesday titled “New initiative aims to create regional bloc, including Israel”. They cite an anonymous official from an unnamed country that allegedly was privy to details of the recent dinner between the Azerbaijani, “Israeli”, Kazakh, Turkish, and Uzbek Ambassadors to the US. According to the outlet, “the growing strength of Russia and Iran, coupled with America’s perceived decline, is one of the factors behind the five countries’ decision to develop closer ties.” That’s most likely fake news, however, which will be debunked in this piece.

It’s true that Turkish-“Israeli” relations seem to have comparatively thawed as of late and that the Anatolian nation has close ties with those other three Turkic countries through the newly renamed Organization of Turkic States (OTS). Nevertheless, all five can still cooperate without having to do so against any third party, be it Iran and/or Russia. In fact, it’s very difficult to imagine Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan going against Moscow considering their very close ties with the Eurasian Great Power that will now be described.

Baku’s almost counterintuitively grew following its victory in the 2020 Karabakh War, after which Russian peacekeepers were deployed to parts of Karabakh per the Moscow-mediated ceasefire. As for Nur-Sultan’s, their strength was on full display last month following the lightning-fast success of the Russian-led CSTO’s limited peacekeeping mission there. Both also play crucial transregional transit roles for Russia via the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) with Iran and India that Azerbaijan’s an irreplaceable part of and the Eurasian Land Bridge that Kazakhstan facilitates with China.

Russian-Turkish competition, meanwhile, has been responsibly regulated through the proactive efforts of their two leaders in spite of occasional upticks in mutual suspicion as a result of various incidents like Ankara’s dispatch of Bayraktar drones to Ukraine. As for Russian-“Israeli” ties, these two are actually de facto allies despite what the Mainstream and Alternative Media both curiously claim about them supposedly secretly hating one another. The most recent evidence of that was the “Israeli” Foreign Minister refusing to take sides between Russia and the US in the New Cold War.

Uzbekistan also enjoys excellent relations with Russia nowadays too. Moscow endorsed Tashkent’s vision of connecting Central Asia and South Asia via February 2021’s agreement to build a Pakistan-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan (PAKAFUZ) railway that could eventually reach Russia. Both sides have also carried out military drills in response to recent Afghan-emanating threats too. Additionally, President Putin also called on Uzbekistan to participate more intensely in the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union’s (EAEU) work after being granted observer status in 2020.

Against this backdrop of their respective relations with Russia, it’s extremely difficult to imagine Azerbaijan, “Israel”, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and/or Uzbekistan having any desire to team up against Moscow, let alone all together. This is especially true of Kazakhstan, which was literally just saved from last month’s Hybrid War against it by Russia’s decisive intervention. For this reason, it’s inaccurate to report that they’re coming together on any anti-Russian basis. More than likely, Israel Hayom’s anonymous source just wanted to draw attention to their Ambassadors’ recent dinner, that’s all.

Still, it’s wrong for that individual to have falsely claimed that any of those participants were driven by a supposed desire to counter Russia. They could have attracted wider coverage of that event through more responsible means. Anyone who’s familiar with the facts that the author just shared should know that none of them have any such intentions and that it’s unthinkable for Kazakhstan to ever countenance any such scenario after what just happened last month. Nevertheless, they’ll be those who’ll push this likely fake news for self-interested reasons, but they shouldn’t be taken seriously.