The Relations of Gok-Turks and Byzantium Against the Sasani's      

 

       However, Anuşirvan was not happy with this sharing, although he had the "lion's share" in comparison to his additions for the victory. He also wanted to obtain the Transoxiana route of the caravan road. With this intention, he stopped the silk transport from his country to the harbours of Mediterranean and Byzantium. In this manner, he applied his idea to bring disorder by sabotaging the activities of the people of Sogd (the region of Semerkant), the famous caravanians of the silk trade and the dependent group to the Gok-Turks. He also wanted to deprive the Turks from the high income such as the charges of silk transit. He even killed the envoys Istemi had sent to him by cheating.

 

       Istemi hit out the hope of reconcile, returned to Byzantium and sent a committee to Istanbul with a silk merchant from Sogd and the diplomat Maniah as the president (568) of the committee. This was the first official committee that went from Middle Asia to East Rome in the history. Since the silk problem interested also Byzantium as well as the Gok-Turks, the Byzantine Emperor Justinos II welcomed the Turkish envoys with the desire of getting rid of the Sassanids' interventions, changing the transport route to the Indian Ocean, and making contacts with the state of Himyeri in south Arabia.

 

       He read Istemi's letter that was written in "Iskit" (Turkish) and from Maniah's explanations, he understood the seriousness of the initiative. He sent out a committee with Zemarkhos, the general governor as the president of the committee, to make an agreement (568, beginning of August). It was a precious document that showed the life style, strength and splendour of the Gok-Turks in the memories of the Byzantine envoys, who came to Ak-Dağ passing from the Tien Shan Range by the route of Black Sea, Caucasia, Caspian Sea, and the Lake of Aral to the presence of Istemi (according to the Byzantine sources, Dizabulo, Dilzibulos, Silzioulos, Stembis: Sincibu in Altaris). Istemi realized his desire to suppress Anuşirvan to open the Silk Road by cooperating with Byzantium and in the year of 571 the struggle between Sassanids and Byzantium began. But there is no evidence that the Gok-Turks joined to this war.

 

       However, they interfered within the last years of Ormuzd IV. (579-590), as he had been the son of Anurşivan, born from a Gok-Turk princess and therefore named as "Turkish-born". The reason of this lateness can be understood from the words of Turk-şad, the person who met Valentinos in the Turkish region near the Lake of Aral in 576, one of the envoys that Byzantium sent to oppress the Gok-Turks to join to the war. This Turkish prince blamed Byzantium to protect the Avars, the unforgivable enemies of the Gok-Turks, and to give shelters to those "who deserved to crush under the legs of the horses like ants, instead of being killed with a sword"; and this blame was true.

 

       The most important conclusion of the politics of Istemi was that: after the Sassanids-Byzantium struggle which lasted for 19 years (571-590), these two emperorships' relations did not improve and with the attacks of the Emperor Heraklaious to Madain (Ktesiphon), the capital of the Sassanids (622-628), The Sassanids Emperorship had no more power left. This situation, which is also mentioned in the Koran, made the sovereignty of the Islamic Religion in Iran easier.