Short overview - Turkic Council

The informal summit set to take place today is to be chaired by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and will be joined by First President of Kazakhstan – Elbasy Nursultan Nazarbayev, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, and Turkic Council Secretary General Bagdad Amreev.
The event is to focus on further development of trade and economic, cultural and humanitarian cooperation. A declaration on cultural values of the Turkic speaking countries and the status of the Council is expected to be adopted.
The Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States (Turkic Council) was founded in line with the Agreement signed on October 3, 2009, in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan, during the 9th Summit of the Heads of the Turkic speaking countries at the initiative of First President of Kazakhstan – Elbasy Nursultan Nazarbayev. The signatories to the Agreement were Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey.
Turkish diplomat Halil Akıncı became the first Secretary-General of the Turkic Council. The Council’s Secretariat is based in Istanbul and headed by Kazakh Ambassador Bagdad Amreev.
In 2019, Nursultan Nazarbayev was granted the status of the Honored Chairman of the Turkic Council.
In the same year, Uzbekistan joined the Council. Hungary joined the Council as an observer State in 2018. The Council opened its office in Budapest on September 19, 2019.
Since 2011 the Council has held seven summits. The Extraordinary Summit of the Turkic Council discussing the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic was held on April 10, 2020, via videoconferencing.
The four working groups focusing on the development of trade and economic cooperation between the member States, improvement of investment climate, entrepreneurship and tourism development operate within the Turkic Council. In 2011, the Business Council was established under the Turkic Council.
The Heads of the member States’ of the Council signed the document establishing the Turkic Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the Astana Economic Forum on May 17, 2019 in Nur-Sultan city.
The International Organization of Turkic Culture and Turkic Academy also operate under the Council. In 2014, the Fund of Turkic Culture and Heritage was founded at the initiative of President of Azerbaija Ilham Aliyev.