https://arab.news/rfsjd
Washington on Monday played host to an unusually quiet but geopolitically significant visit. Kubanychbek Omuraliev, the secretary-general of the Organization of Turkic States, arrived in the US capital for meetings with State Department officials, members of Congress and policy leaders. This was an important visit that could lead to closer relations between the Turkic world and the US.
It came on the heels of last month’s historic meeting between President Donald Trump and his Central Asian counterparts at the White House to mark the 10th anniversary of the C5+1 format, as well as the US-brokered diplomatic breakthrough between Armenia and Azerbaijan earlier this year. Taken together, these developments underscore the growing strategic relevance of the organization and help explain why this was the right moment for the secretary-general’s visit.
The Organization of Turkic States — made up of Turkiye, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan — is an increasingly important intergovernmental organization on the global stage. The original idea for more formalized Turkic cooperation was proposed as early as 2006 by then-Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. It was subsequently founded in 2009 as the Turkic Council by Turkiye, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan, with the aim of strengthening shared cultural, historical, linguistic and economic ties among ethnically Turkic countries.
