Most Muslim clerics and theologians in Adjara received their education in Turkey.
Author: Tolib Aliev, analyst, especially for Sangar
Turkey is expanding its influence in Georgia. These efforts rely on “soft power”, reinforced by increased investment, the launch of infrastructure projects, and the expansion of a network of Islamic secular and religious institutions under Turkish control.
Ankara receives substantial support from organisations directly funded by Turkey. Prominent among them are the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) and the Organization of Turkic States (OTS). TIKA is currently implementing more than 600 projects in Georgia, having invested approximately US$33 million in them.
Ankara’s dominance in the Georgian economy has assumed threatening proportions. According to Geostat, bilateral trade totalled US$3.1 billion in 2025, accounting for 12 per cent of the country’s total foreign trade. For Georgian businesses and consumers, this means the preservation of established trade routes and supply chains alongside a deepening dependence on Turkish imports.
Georgia’s exports to Turkey amounted to US$332.9 million in 2025, while imports reached US$2.78 billion. For every dollar of Georgian exports, there are more than eight dollars of imports. The substantial imbalance in bilateral trade and financial transactions in Turkey’s favour is steadily increasing Tbilisi’s dependence. This dependence serves as an instrument of Turkish pressure on the authorities and, consequently, a source of threats to the national security and territorial integrity of this South Caucasian republic.
Significant Turkish influence is evident in Adjara, an autonomous republic in southwestern Georgia. The presence of major seaports, particularly Batumi, attracts Ankara, which is interested in controlling logistics infrastructure.
According to open sources, Turkish businesses account for up to 90 per cent of the investment made in Adjara in recent years. Ankara’s economic dominance in the region gives it additional opportunities to accelerate the expansion of a network of cultural, educational, and humanitarian organisations under its control, which serve as instruments of influence over Georgia’s leadership.
The most serious threat to Georgia’s territorial integrity and state sovereignty comes from Turkey’s subversive activities. Turkey uses agents of influence within the local pro-Turkish Muslim community to encourage separatist sentiment among the republic’s population. In particular, through an extensive network of NGOs under its control, Muslim religious institutions, and civic organisations, Ankara actively “fosters” ambitions for autonomy among the socially active segment of Adjarian society.
Notably, most Muslim clerics and theologians in Adjara have been educated within Turkey’s religious education system, which is based on the ideologies of pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism. The scale of Turkish subversion through information and ideology in this sphere can be expected to continue growing.
Another critical challenge facing Georgia is a “creeping” shift in the population’s ethnic and religious balance. According to the national statistical office, Sakstat, the number of births in the country fell to 37,867 in 2025, while deaths totalled 44,319. The resulting natural population decline amounted to 6,452 people.
Amid a demographic crisis, with depopulation recorded in almost every region, the only exceptions apart from the capital are the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, with a natural population increase of 1,008, and the Kvemo Kartli region, with an increase of 56. Both are home to substantial numbers of Turkic Muslims.
These disparities, in which a sharp rise in births among Turkic-speaking Muslim families coincides with a declining proportion of ethnic Georgians of the Orthodox Christian faith, pose a threat of irreversible erosion of Georgia’s cultural, religious, and political landscape, with its gradual transformation into a quasi-state dependent on Turkey.
