A meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Organization of Turkic States (OTG) has begun in Samarkand, reported Uzbek media.

Before the event, a joint photograph of the participants took place.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov, President of Türkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Hungary (observer country) Viktor Orban are participating in the meeting chaired by the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev as an honored guest of the summit - Chairman of the Halk Maslahaty Milli Gengesh of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, as well as the Secretary General of the organization Bagdad Amreev.

This is the first summit of the Organization of Turkic States, formed instead of the Turkic Council.

The international organization “Turkic Council”, which unites modern states for the purpose of comprehensive cooperation between the Turkic peoples, was established on October 3, 2009 in Nakhichevan by the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey. On April 30, 2018, Uzbekistan joined them.

On November 12, 2021, at the VIII Summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States in Istanbul, the Turkic Council was renamed the Organization of Turkic States. At the same summit, Turkmenistan was accepted as a member of this organization in the status of an observer. Since the end of 2018, Hungary has also had observer status in the Organization of Turkic States.