What Is the Organization of Turkic States (OTS)?

In short

The Organization of Turkic States (OTS) is an intergovernmental international organization established to deepen comprehensive cooperation among Turkic-language states. Its roots go back to the "Summits of Heads of Turkic-Speaking States," held regularly since 1992; after 10 such summits, the organization was formally founded on 3 October 2009 in Nakhchivan, under the Nakhchivan Agreement, by Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkiye, as the "Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States" (the Turkic Council for short). At the 8th Summit, held in Istanbul on 12 November 2021, the organization adopted its current name, the Organization of Turkic States. Its Secretariat is located in Istanbul, in the Binbirdirek area of the Fatih district.

Article 2 of the Nakhchivan Agreement sets out the organization's core purposes and duties, including: strengthening mutual trust, preserving regional peace, developing common positions in foreign policy, coordinating action against terrorism and cross-border crime, creating favorable conditions for trade and investment, supporting economic and cultural development, protecting the rule of law and human rights, and expanding cooperation in science, technology, and education.

Structure

The organization's highest decision-making body is the Summit (the Council of Heads of State), where member-state leaders convene; the rotating chairmanship passes among member states. Day-to-day operations are run by the Secretariat on the organization's behalf. Secretaries General to date:

Member and observer states

OTS's four founding full members are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkiye; Uzbekistan gained full-member status at the 7th Summit (Baku) in October 2019. Four observers — three countries and one international organization — also participate in OTS:

You can visit our Countries page to examine the manufacturing and trade profiles of these countries.

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Cooperation areas related to Made in Turan

OTS's official cooperation agenda spans more than 30 distinct areas. We highlight the ones directly relevant to manufacturing, trade, and the economy:

Other cooperation areas

Other areas on OTS's official cooperation agenda not directly related to manufacturing and trade:

• – Political cooperation
• – Tourism cooperation
• – Education cooperation
• – Information and media cooperation
• – Youth and sports cooperation
• – Diaspora cooperation
• – Cooperation in information and communication technologies (ICT)
• – Health cooperation
• – Cooperation on migration
• – Cooperation in the judiciary and legislation
• – Cooperation on humanitarian affairs and development
• – Cooperation among Muslim religious institutions
• – Cooperation in human resources
• – Cooperation with international organizations
• – Cooperation on family and social policy matters
• – Cooperation among authorities responsible for emergency and disaster management
• – Cooperation in consular affairs
• – Cooperation among official research centers
• – Cooperation among ministers of environment and ecology
• – Cooperation among cartography institutions
• – Cooperation among institutions responsible for land registry and cadastre
• – Cooperation in cultural relations
• – Cooperation in labor, employment, and social protection
• – Cooperation in intellectual property

Source: turkicstates.org/en/areas-of-cooperation

Related organizations

Several other institutions operate under the OTS umbrella or work closely with it. We don't produce their content ourselves — for details, we point to their official sites:

TTSO doesn't have a separate institutional website; the link goes to its official X (Twitter) account. The OTS Drought Prevention Institute's official site (dpiots.org) doesn't publish any content yet as of this writing.