The Organization of Turkic States (OTS) is one of the main foreign policy initiatives of Azerbaijan. In his swearing-in ceremony in February 2024 Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, described the OTS as the main international organization for Azerbaijan and announced that Baku’s future foreign policy goal would be focused on making the OTS one of the main international organizations in the world.
Previously known as the Turkic Council, the OTS was founded in 2009. Since then, it has grown into a fully-fledged international organization, to include several institutions—the General Secretariat in Istanbul, the Turkic Academy in Astana, the Turkic Cultural Foundation in Baku, as well as several other entities such as an OTS representative office in Budapest.
Engagement with the Central Asian Turkic states is strategically significant in Azerbaijan’s foreign policy. First and foremost, the ongoing geopolitical turmoil in the neighborhood leaves Azerbaijan as a vital link on a geographical route for Central Asian states, bypassing both Russia and China in their engagement with the external world. The issue of economic diversification, particularly in the form of the diversification of energy routes, makes Azerbaijan a strategic route for Kazakhstan to export its oil to Western and world markets without using the existing traditional route through Russia.
Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan’s state oil companies, KazMunaiGas and SOCAR, signed an agreement in March 2024 on a gradual increase in the transit of Kazakh oil via Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan expressed willingness to increase receipt of Kazakh oil to 2.2 million tons annually. The usage of Azerbaijani energy pipelines, in particular the Baku-Supsa and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipelines, is a strategic necessity for Kazakhstan to export its oil to world markets. Oil shipment via Azerbaijan will gradually grow to 16.5 million barrels a year, double the 2023 figure.
Azerbaijan’s recent participation in Central Asian summits as well as the joint summits and meetings of Central Asian states and the Gulf countries (GCC) is also a new trend in its foreign policy and highlights the strategic importance of Baku for Turkic states. The areas of cooperation are huge and cover strategically important topics such as logistics, trade, energy routes, and economic and security aspects. Considering that the US, Germany, and United Kingdom (UK) increased their engagement with the Central Asian Turkic states since the Russia-Ukraine war, and that the US and Germany institutionalized their engagements in the format of 5+1, Azerbaijan’s strategic role for these countries is also growing.
With the restoration of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty President Aliyev made integration with the Turkic states a national priority. Amidst the Russia-Ukraine war and the confrontations between the West and Russia and the US and China, Azerbaijan seeks to stay out of this global struggle and reduce its negative impacts in a region where security is already being affected.
The OTS has traditionally focused on culture, transportation, and logistics. President Aliyev proposed expanding OTS cooperation to include military, defense, and defense-industry matters, which reflects a proactive approach in Azerbaijan’s foreign policy in the midst of the increasing global and regional security issues.
Richard Outzen identifies five regional security dynamics that accelerate military integration and cooperation between the Turkic states. They are the economic and technological development in the Turkish defense industry, which is enabling Turkey to become one of the leading nations in the production and export of drones. Turkey’s military capacity, with a professional military that can provide training, education, doctrine, and military equipment to the countries that are seeking to diversify from Russia’s traditional dominance also matters. Russia’s aggressive foreign policy, which is seen in its support for Armenian irredentism against Azerbaijan, its war in Georgia (2008), and ongoing war against Ukraine, turned many away from Russia. Generational change in Turkic states, American withdrawal from Afghanistan (2021), and disagreements among the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) states are all factors shaping the view that no external power or military alliance can be a reliable security guarantor and that the Turkic states will have to step up joint security efforts to face security challenges.
According to Cavid Veliyev, following the liberation of Azerbaijani land from Armenian occupation, Azerbaijan became a target country for Western organizations, mainly driven by an orientalist and selective approach to the principle of territorial integrity and state sovereignty. As a result, Western institutions lost credibility in the eyes of Azerbaijani society. The OTS, however, emerged as a crucial ally of Azerbaijan. Its support for the restoration of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over the occupied lands has not gone unnoticed by the Azerbaijani public.
President Aliyev’s proposal to bolster defense and military cooperation among the member states builds on the Astana Declaration, approved by the heads of state at the 10th Summit of the Organization of Turkic States on November 3, 2023, which commits to joint efforts in fighting terrorism, drug trafficking, and separatism.
The Turkic states face many of the same security threats. Russia is an aggressive and unpredictable neighbor. The rise of an assertive Chinese foreign policy is worrisome. The Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan is problematic. American attempts to project its confrontation with China onto economic projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative in the region is also an issue of concern. Terrorism, particularly the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in neighboring Tajikistan worries Azerbaijan greatly. Finally, there is the issue of separatism.
The Turkic countries share a vision of joining efforts to face these collective security risks. They are represented in two different security organizations, with Turkey as a NATO member and Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic as members of the Russia-led CSTO. Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan are not members of either military bloc. Although Azerbaijan is a neutral country as a non-aligned movement member, it has strong relations with NATO and participates in NATO programs. It took part in the peacekeeping contingent in NATO missions in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Baku also has close security ties with CSTO members such as Kazakhstan.
Additionally, Azerbaijan has a military alliance with Turkey, enhanced by the 2021 Shusha Declaration on Allied Relations between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Turkey. The declaration highlights mutual security commitments, such as strengthening defense capability and military security, conducting joint Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercises and training, increasing the interaction and interoperability of the armed forces, increasing joint weapons production, and holding joint meetings of the security councils on national security issues.
If the territorial integrity and sovereignty of either state is violated, the parties will hold joint consultations and coordinate their political, diplomatic, and military efforts to eliminate the threat. With the recent change in the landscape in the South Caucasus region, the Shusha Declaration is the embodiment of the emerging Azerbaijani-Turkish cooperation as the decisive military-economic factor shaping regional developments and the security architecture.
The OTS covers a vast geography with substantial natural and human resources. It has close to 170 million inhabitants with the potential for this number to increase to 250 million by 2050, and the potential to produce $2 trillion in gross domestic product. The significance of the Turkic states increased following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as Europe’s trade routes with China passing via Russian territory become insecure geopolitically.
Its concrete projects include the establishment of an investment fund, integration and ease of customs procedures, and the promotion of the Middle Corridor between Europe and China via the South Caucasus and Central Asia, also known as the Trans Caspian trade route. There are increasing investments that ensure intra-regional connectivity with well-developed infrastructure projects among the member states.
In short, Azerbaijan, which is often overlooked by Western states, is a country actively working to place itself as a key partner to the West, while recognizing that it sits between Russia and China—an unenviable position. Supporting Azerbaijani efforts to improve its economic success and security efforts will only make the country a more reliable partner for NATO and the United States.
Rufat Ahmadzada is a graduate of City, University of London. His research area covers the South Caucasus and Iran.
