Turkic states' think tanks meet to advance regional cooperation

Think tanks from Turkic countries have convened for a high-level meeting in Kazakhstan's capital Astana.

Nuh Yilmaz, chief adviser to the Turkish foreign minister and head of the Center for Strategic Research (SAM) under the Foreign Ministry, and his delegation attended the ninth meeting of the Official Foreign Policy Research Centers of the Member and Observer States of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) on Thursday.

According to a written statement issued by the Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Studies, a state institution which hosted the meeting, among the attendees were OTS Secretary General Kubanychbek Omuraliev, representatives and diplomats from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Hungary as well.

In his speech at the special meeting, Yilmaz said that the OTS has rapidly transformed since its establishment. Trade routes have changed, and Asia has come to the fore in the world economy, he argued, adding that they should not miss these opportunities presented to them by history and geography.

The official further said that the importance of transportation networks and connection roads worldwide has increased and that the most important reason why the Turks, active on the route in the past thousand years, are no longer so was that sea routes replaced the Silk Road.

He emphasized that when land routes gained importance, the Turkic world was again at the epicentre of these trade routes and had an opportunity to regain its former prominence.

Yilmaz further underlined that they would either take advantage of this opportunity or leave it and wait for the opportunities that would arise again a few centuries later.

The official, who also held bilateral and multilateral meetings on the margins of the meeting, also met with Omuraliev. In their one-on-one meeting, Yilmaz and Omuraliev discussed the joint projects that think tanks in the Turkic world can undertake in the coming period.