OMM Newsroom
Türkiye is set to host the 13th summit of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) in Ankara on Thursday and Friday, under the theme “Turkic Century: Unity in Language, Thought and Deed”. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will host the gathering, Anadolu Agency reported.
The leaders’ summit is scheduled for Friday, while the OTS Council of Foreign Ministers will meet on Thursday.
Founded in 2009 as the Turkic Council, the organization adopted its current name at its eighth summit in Istanbul in 2021. Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan are members. Turkmenistan, Hungary, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Economic Cooperation Organization have observer status.
The OTS said on October 24 that the meeting would bring together member-state leaders, senior representatives from observer states and the organization’s secretary general to discuss cooperation and its future prospects.
Heads of state are expected to review progress in the organization’s priority areas, with emphasis on strengthening unity and solidarity among Turkic states and advancing cooperation under the Turkic World Vision 2040.
The summit will also mark Türkiye taking over the OTS chairmanship from Azerbaijan. Participants are expected to discuss appointing a new secretary general and setting the organization’s strategic priorities for the coming period. The leaders are expected to adopt the Ankara Declaration, along with decisions and documents aimed at deepening cooperation and strengthening the OTS’s institutional framework.
Experts point to trade and transport
Turan Gafarli, a non-resident fellow at the Baku-based Topchubashov Center, said support among Turkic states and stronger political solidarity were significant aspects of the Ankara summit.
He told Anadolu Agency that, amid growing global uncertainty, the Turkic world was developing the capacity to act together in response to international developments. Gafarli said brotherhood meant not only coming together in good times but also standing by one another during difficult ones, and said he believed the summit would strengthen the trust built so far.
Gafarli described the summit theme’s emphasis on unity as significant and said the gathering could give momentum to economic relations, transport corridors and political coordination. He called the Middle Corridor’s growing strategic importance a historic opportunity for closer economic ties, while saying that boosting trade between member states would be among the necessary steps.
He also said Turkic states needed to consult more closely on international issues and advocate more strongly for their shared interests. Gafarli said Türkiye’s chairmanship could bring fresh dynamism in this regard.
Shairbek Dzhuraev, president of the Bishkek-based Crossroads Central Asia research institute, said the clearest progress had been in the economic sphere, particularly in transport and transit.
Dzhuraev said the development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route depended on harmonising tariffs and simplifying customs procedures, adding that progress could be measured by the time and cost of transporting goods.
He identified digitalisation as another promising area, noting that it had been a focus of the OTS informal summit held in Turkistan, southern Kazakhstan, in May. Dzhuraev said a key outcome of the Ankara summit would be setting concrete timelines and mechanisms to implement previously agreed decisions, particularly on transport and trade.
Summit agenda includes football proposal
Sports is also expected to feature in efforts to demonstrate unity. At a news conference in Ankara ahead of the summit, Kursad Zorlu, the Justice and Development Party’s deputy chair responsible for relations with Turkic states, said plans included classifying players from Turkic states as domestic rather than foreign players in one another’s leagues. He said the initiative would help foster a football ecosystem across the Turkic world.
