President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday hailed the achievements of Türkiye-Kyrgyzstan Manas University as the “pride of the Turkic world.”
“I am very pleased to find out Manas University has made it to the world’s top 1,000 universities for two years in a row,” Erdoğan said during a visit to the campus as part of his Kyrgyzstan trip.
Erdoğan is in Bishkek to hold bilateral talks and attend the 11th summit of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS).
“This achievement is a source of pride for not just Türkiye and Kyrgyzstan but also the entire Turkic world,” Erdoğan said. “I congratulate all teachers and students who have contributed to this.”
Erdoğan also inaugurated some 110 new facilities, services and projects, including two new faculties, an institute and 26 laboratories, built at the Manas campus, which was opened on April 10, 2013.
“We expect Manas University will achieve many more great projects and more qualified scientific studies in years to come,” he said.
Addressing university students, Erdoğan emphasized that trees whose roots have weakened and even reached the point of breaking are doomed to dry up and fall.
“Never sever your ties with your history, civilizational values, family, faith and ideals,” he said.
Quoting the late Kyrgyz author Cengiz Aytmatov, Erdoğan said: “In human life, which he likens to a path on a mountain, only those who unite and support each other will reach the destination.”
Erdoğan told students not to let themselves be taken captive by “ideologies,” citing that they paid a heavy price in Türkiye’s decadeslong fight against terrorism. He was apparently implying the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), which had widespread clout in Central Asia.
The FETÖ rapidly expanded in Central Asia both in education and commerce in the 1990s following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Most countries limited the FETÖ’s activities in the early 2000s due to its links to the U.S., where it operates dozens of public-funded charter schools and its leader, Fetullah Gülen, once lived.
The FETÖ used the country as its hub in Central Asia until President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit in September 2018 changed its view of FETÖ.
