Multivariate statistical analysis of socioeconomic structure and development potential of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan republics

After the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), a strategic gap has born in the Caucasus and Central Asia geography which has the power to be able to shape the world on the grounds of its underground resources and its geopolitical position and this geography has attracted the attention of the whole world to itself. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are countries that are interconnected with Turkey in terms of history and religion. With the disintegration of the USSR; Turkey, which is always on the front line in relations with the West, has shifted its direction from Western countries towards the Turkish republics and the emergence of these Turkish Republics has a separate significance for Turkey in terms of saving Turkey from becoming a lonely isolated country on the international arena for a long time. On the other hand, developed countries see the countries which emerge after the disintegration of the USSR as a large market place because of the underground sources they have. With this regard, it is of great importance for Turkey to take steps to improve its relations with the Turkish republics. In this study, 15 countries established after the disintegration of USSR have been classified by using Ward (1993) method which is one of the hierarchical cluster analysis techniques and tries to make the variance in clusters minimum by taking the data of 2016 year and characteristic features that these countries have as basis. In addition, squared euclidean has been used as distance measure. So, it has been aimed to interpret the clusters with respect to factors driving countries to gather in the same cluster or to throw them out of the cluster. Keywords: USSR, Turkish republic, cluster analysis, distance measure.