It’s not what you think.

After watching this KBS historical program translated by Cheon1Son, sutiben learned why Turkey and Korea are very chummy. There’s a reason both countries rooted for each other in past World Cup soccer games.

Without knowing the past,¹ it would seem very strange especially since both countries are no even close. They’re farther than sutiben can throw a pebble and suti can throw far far away. Learned to… while in middle of pond, duckies like to laugh at suti’s mismatched socks ^^;

Anyhoo, this Asian history is all new to sutiben but think Youtube user Xentradi97 said it best:

I didn’t know the relations between Korea and Turks go way way way back. I thought it was just because Turkey supported Korea during Korean war by committing their troops.

Suti not even know that either *looks at floor* ya, no giggling! Just look at videos.

UPDATE: A few videos were taken down and not working. Still, watch the rest before they’re all gone. They’re good.

The relationship between Koguryeo and the ancient Turk

There are traces of ancient Koreans visiting modern Uzbekistan, one of them being Afrasiab’s wall painting showing Goguryeo representatives. But why did two Goguryeo envoys travel to Samarkand during the 7th century?

Go back to early Korea. Because Yeon Gaesomun (연개소문) wanted a stronger policy against Emperor Yi Semin/Lǐ Shìmín (李世民) and Tang China, he overthrew the previous king.

Chinese and Koreans argue over the details between Yun Gaesomun and Yi Semin.

Yi Semin used Yun Gaesomun’s military coup as excuse to invade. Overall, Tang China was very powerful and Goguryeo lost many cities in the beginning of the war

But in Ansi, Goguryeo won a crucial battle which bought them time. Yun Gaesomun then sent envoys to the Seryunta tribe and instigated a fight with Tang. Both Goguryeo and the Seryunta tribe helped each other as Tang China had to fight two battle fronts.

The Goguryeo and the Northern Nomadic tribes held close ties.

The next Tang emperor waged more war against Goguryeo and took over many Northern tribes, including their former ally. Losing in the war, Goguryeo likely sent envoys faraway to find new friends. Eventually they find new allies to attack Tang China and repeat the same winning strategy.

So, the nomadic tribes that helped Korea early on are called the Ancient Turks/Dolkwol (돌궐) and they migrated all the way to Turkey. Kind of a nice story ^__^ And this is why they’re best 친구.

UPDATE: Sutiben found a Korean page that discusses this brotherhood topic further. ”Tis all in Korean but you can sort of make sense of it from the Google translation