Honorary Turkish Consulate in Kazakhstan’s Shymkent to further ties
Türkiye strives to prepare the Turkic world for the future, Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu said during the inauguration ceremony of the consulate
TÜRKİYE’S new honorary consulate in Kazakhstan’s Shymkent will contribute to the furthering of bilateral relations, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said yesterday.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the consulate, Çavuşoğlu underlined that this move would strengthen the ties between the peoples of Türkiye and Kazakhstan while the consulate would serve both countries’ citizens.
Türkiye’s top diplomat highlighted that the country has reached 256 foreign representations throughout the world and that this number would increase to 257 soon. The country also boasts 108 honorary consulates.
“Serving our citizens is one of the most important priorities of our foreign policy. It is our duty to serve our citizens, our compatriots and our relatives wherever they are in the world.”
Touching upon economic ties, Çavuşoğlu said that the two countries aim to reach a bilateral trade volume of $10 billion. “We have reached $5 billion. Our investments have surpassed $4.5 billion,” he outlined.
Noting that they recently discussed how to strengthen cooperation with Kazakhstan, especially on logistics and transportation, Çavuşoğlu said that they established the Türkiye-Kazakhstan-Azerbaijan tripartite mechanism.
Çavuşoğlu also underlined the importance of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s recent visit to Kazakhstan.
Upon the invitation of his Kazakh counterpart Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Erdoğan visited Kazakhstan on Oct. 12-13 2022. The fourth meeting of the TürkiyeKazakhstan High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council, organized as part of the visit of Erdoğan to Kazakhstan, was an important step in strengthening the cooperation between the countries.
The presidents expressed their views that this visit will contribute to the further consolidation of the Enhanced Strategic Partnership between the two countries in their joint statement after the meeting, and underlined the importance of continuing the political dialogue between the states through mutual visits and talks at various levels.
Kazakhstan established diplomatic relations with Türkiye in March 1992, about two months after officially announcing its independence.
Thus, Türkiye opened its embassy in Almaty, the country’s capital at that time, and pioneered the establishment of the first diplomatic mission in independent Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan also set up its embassy in Ankara in the same year. In 2009, bilateral relations gained the status of strategic partnership.
On the other side, Çavuşoğlu reiterated his warning regarding the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).
“The FETÖ terrorist organization is a threat not only to Türkiye but to every country it is in. We see how insidious they are.”
TURKIC STATES SUMMIT
He also mentioned that he would attend the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) summit tomorrow, during which the legal structure works in many areas concerning the organization after its name change will be addressed.
Member states will also evaluate and discuss “existing and new cooperation topics” as well as “global and regional issues on the common agenda of the organization.”
Formed in 2009, the OTS promotes cooperation among Turkic-speaking states, including member states Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Türkiye and Uzbekistan, with Hungary and Turkmenistan as observers.
Çavuşoğlu reiterated that transforming the Council of Turkic States into the Organization of Turkic States last year in Istanbul was a “milestone” and said, “We are preparing the Turkic world for the future with all these efforts.”
The upcoming summit of the OTS to be held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, will focus on key issues of multilateral cooperation among members.
Hosted by President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the summit is expected to be attended by President Erdoğan, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, President of Kazakhstan Tokayev, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, former President of Turkmenistan and Chairperson of the Halk Maslakhaty of the Milli Gengesh of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, and OTS Secretary General Baghdad Amreyev.
Devoted to the theme of “New Era for the Turkic Civilization: Toward Common Development and Prosperity,” it will generate a high-level platform for the discussion of the intensive agenda of the organization, where the leaders will take decisions on a number of important issues as well as finalize various agreements and official documents of OTS projects in the fields of economy, trade, transport and customs.
According to a written statement by the OTS, leaders will exchange views on several political and economic developments in the region and beyond.
“At the end of the Summit program, the Chairmanship-in-Office of the Organization will pass from Türkiye to Uzbekistan and the Heads of State will ink the Samarkand Declaration together with a series of resolutions including the managerial appointments at the OTS Secretariat,” the statement added.