Passage: Following the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991, Turkes supported the creation of a union of Turkic countries with the participation of Turkey and the mainly Moslem former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Turkes was also the virtual leader of the ultranationalist Grey Wolves organisation, whose members were involved in bloody fighting with extreme leftist groups in the late 1970s, prompting the 1980 military coup.
participation