Kazakhstan is partly European

...through the vast landscape [around Uralsk, north of the Caspian Sea] runs the Zhaiyk river, which meanders down from the Urals, Europe's traditional eastern boundary. As you cross westward, the sign on the bridge says simply "Europe"; as you return, "Asia".

Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan, says that, if his country ever applied to join the European Union, it would have a better claim than Turkey. That is because more of its territory lies west of the river Zhaiyk than there is Turkish land west of the Bosporus.

Then a good chunk of Iran is west of that line, too.