BISHKEK (TCA) — At the 7th Summit of the Turkic Council in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku on October 15, Uzbekistan was officially accepted as the group’s fifth full member.
The Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States, also known as the Turkic Council, was established in 2009 with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey as the group’s founding members. Uzbekistan applied for membership in the group in September 2019.
At the Turkic Council’s summit in Kyrgyzstan in September 2018, Hungary joined the group as an observer state.
The 7th Summit of the Turkic Council in Baku was attended by Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev as the host, Nursultan Nazarbayev, First President of Kazakhstan, Sooronbai Jeenbekov, President of the Kyrgyz Republic, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, President of Uzbekistan, Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, Purli Agamyradov, Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan, and the Turkic Council Secretary General Baghdad Amreyev.
Also on October 15, Kazakhstan’s former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who represented his country at the summit, was elected as lifetime honorable chairman of the Turkic Council, RFE/RL reported.
Although Nazarbayev resigned in March, he still enjoys his bespoke “leader of the nation” title and its comforts, including immunity from prosecution. He also presides over Kazakhstan’s powerful Security Council and chairs Kazakhstan’s long-ruling Nur Otan party.
