Think tanks from Turkic states meet in Kazakhstan for talks

By Mustafa Deveci

ANKARA (AA) – Think tanks from Turkic countries convened for a high-level meeting in Kazakhstan's capital Astana on Thursday.

Nuh Yilmaz, chief advisor to 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).

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 session of the meeting, Yilmaz said that the OTS has undergone a rapid transformation 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 around the world has increased, and that the most important reason why the Turks, who were active on the route in the past thousand years, are no longer so was that the Silk Road was replaced by sea routes.

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

Yilmaz further underlined that they would either take advantage of this opportunity or leave it and wait for the opportunities that will 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.