President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday attended the first tripartite summit with his counterparts from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.
Erdoğan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkmen leader Serdar Berdimuhamedov met in the western Turkmen city of Awaza to address steps to further deepen cooperation between the three countries in various areas, particularly in trade, energy and transportation.
Ahead of the summit, the leaders attended a family photo shoot.
The presidents signed five agreements in various areas including trade, culture, energy, and transport, which aim to strengthen cooperation.
"With the joint declaration adopted at the summit, our heads of state emphasized our will to develop our cooperation at the highest level. We have just signed five documents in the fields of energy, trade and economy, customs, transportation, science, education and culture," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said at a news conference with his Azerbaijani and Turkmen counterparts.
Also, the countries signed a joint declaration following the summit.
Earlier, Erdoğan and his Turkmen counterpart Serdar Berdimuhamedov met to discuss bilateral relations and regional issues.
The closed-door meeting came on the sidelines of the first summit between the leaders of Türkiye, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan in the western Turkmen city of Awaza. No further information has been released about the meeting.
Erdoğan also held talks with Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, chairman of the People's Council of Turkmenistan, the upper chamber of parliament, as well as the nation's former president.
The trilateral meeting will go down in history, Erdoğan told the parliamentary chair, adding that the steps that will be taken in the field of energy, natural gas, and transportation are of "great importance."
"Turkmenistan's permanent membership in the Organization of Turkic States will strengthen the organization," Erdoğan added.
The latest summit of the Organization of Turkic States was held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan last month.
The presidents of Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Türkiye, the prime minister of Hungary, and the head of the upper house of the Parliament of Turkmenistan participated in the event.
The summit was held under the slogan "A new era of Turkic civilization: On the way to common development and prosperity."
The participants of the meeting plan discussed issues of economic cooperation and the current international agenda.
Türkiye passed the chairpersonship to Uzbekistan, and the Samarkand Declaration was adopted as part of the event.
The Organization of Turkic States is an interstate bloc established to expand cooperation between Turkish-speaking countries in the fields of politics, economics, science, education, transport and tourism.
The organization's members are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Türkiye, and Uzbekistan. Hungary and Turkmenistan have observer status in the organization.
The group could expand further if Turkmenistan becomes a full member – an expansion announced by Türkiye's Foreign Ministry but not confirmed by Ashgabat. If Turkmenistan does join, the union set up in 2009 will incorporate all the Central Asian countries that speak languages in the Turkic language family.
