From fraternity to framework: The Turkic world’s strategic turn

The recent Summit of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) in Azerbaijan’s Gabala may very well be remembered as the moment when the Turkic world moved decisively from cultural fraternity to a strategic framework. 

What began as a loose forum of shared heritage has evolved into a structured, multidimensional organisation — one that now speaks the language of coordination, institutional depth, and regional agency.

Convened under the theme Regional Peace and Security, the summit brought together the leaders of the Turkic World. 

The Gabala Declaration, adoption of the ‘OTS+’ flexible cooperation format, and strengthened role of TURKSOY all underscored a widening institutional base. 

The decision to integrate Turkmenistan as an observer in the Turkic Academy and Cultural Heritage Foundation marked further expansion of inclusivity.

The summit also recorded notable advancements: the operationalisation of the Turkic Investment Fund, plans to convene the Council of Central Banks, and renewed commitments to digital transformation, trade facilitation, and transport corridors — from the Middle Corridor to the Trans-Caspian route. 

Collectively, these developments reflected a deliberate shift from dialogue to design, from aspiration to architecture.

A growing security dimension

Equally significant, the Gabala Summit introduced a robust security pillar to the OTS agenda. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev proposed that member states hold a joint military exercise in 2026, a first-of-its-kind demonstration of strategic coordination. 

Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev urged collaboration on cybersecurity and information protection, emphasising the importance of building joint resilience and technological sovereignty across the region.

Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, aligning with all these proposals, declared that “we are ready to contribute in every domain concerning our shared security.” His statement linked defence collaboration directly with Turkic solidarity, emphasising Türkiye’s readiness to strengthen common capabilities. 

The trajectory of security cooperation has now become unmistakable. The recent Bishkek Security Council Secretaries’ meeting identified shared threats: cyber intrusions, disinformation, cross-border crime, and assessed their implications for the Turkic world. 

The ongoing cooperation among intelligence services and defence-industry institutions, together with the planned joint exercises in 2026, constitutes the embryonic form of a coordinated security community.

These initiatives do not merely reflect ambition; they mark recognition of strategic reality. 

As global insecurity intensifies, from conflicts near the region to great-power competition over energy and digital corridors, the Turkic states increasingly understand that collective security and defence-industrial cooperation are prerequisites for genuine autonomy. 

This framework can act as a stabiliser not only for Turkic states but for their wider neighbourhood, enhancing deterrence through dialogue rather than division. 

The OTS’s approach, blending prudence with purpose, seeks to build self-reliance without antagonism, a balance that few regional blocs have achieved.

Institutionalisation with momentum

What distinguishes this summit is not rhetoric but institutional momentum. The creation of functional bodies, such as the Council of Central Banks and the expansion of specialised committees on transport, customs, and energy, demonstrates a determination to convert fraternity into governance.

The Turkic Investment Fund, expected to finance infrastructure, logistics, and small business development, symbolises this pragmatic turn. Its establishment fulfils one of the key mandates of the Istanbul Declaration of 2021. 

Kyrgyzstan’s productive chairmanship, Azerbaijan’s readiness to host and coordinate major initiatives, and Türkiye’s institutional experience together form a credible backbone for sustained regional coordination. 

Execution will be determinant, and here the OTS demonstrates both ambition and capacity.

A particularly forward-looking innovation of the Gabala Summit was the introduction of the ‘OTS+’ format — a flexible cooperation framework that allows the organisation to engage third parties and partners in specific projects without requiring membership. 

This mechanism reflects the OTS’s evolution from an exclusive cultural bloc to a networked platform for Eurasian cooperation with non-Turkic regional partners. 

By lowering the institutional entry threshold while preserving strategic coherence, OTS+ may become one of the organisation’s most adaptive tools — a way to project influence through partnership rather than expansion.

At the same time, connectivity remains the economic backbone of this regional project. Commitments to upgrade the Middle Corridor, harmonise customs procedures, and advance green transport and energy transition goals highlight the bloc’s economic pragmatism. 

Yet this alone does not define the new phase. By strengthening TURKSOY, promoting Turkic heritage, and establishing mechanisms for education, youth, and diaspora cooperation, the OTS recognises culture as strategic capital. 

Shared language, literature, and art are being translated into tangible projects — scholarship networks, cross-border cultural centres, and youth programmes that reinforce a sense of collective belonging.

Simultaneously, the OTS’s expansion of the Digital Turkic Cooperation Platform and coordination on e-government, fintech, and data security underscores that Turkic unity extends well beyond sentiment: it is being coded into digital architecture.

This dual agenda of culture and connectivity gives the OTS both emotional depth and material relevance.

In essence, the OTS is transforming collective identity into actionable frameworks. What was once ceremonial has become developmental and strategic, a genuine bridge between values and results.

Towards a structured Turkic era

The resonance of Turkic cooperation is not confined to summit halls; it is increasingly visible within domestic policy and tangible reconstruction. 

Following the Gabala Summit, Türkiye issued a regulation granting Turkic-origin non-citizens the right to freely continue practising their professions or arts in Türkiye. 

This measure operationalises the spirit of Gabala, linking institutional cooperation with social and economic inclusivity. 

It affirms that Turkic identity is not merely diplomatic rhetoric but a living social principle, reinforced through law, opportunity, and everyday practice.

Symbolic gestures, meanwhile, have acquired policy substance. The groundbreaking of the Fuzuli mosque in Azerbaijan’s liberated city, supported by Turkmenistan, reflects not only spiritual solidarity but also the revival of cultural presence in Karabakh, a powerful act of remembrance and reconstruction. 

Likewise, the school named after 15th-century Timurid sultan Mirza Ulugh Beg, built through Uzbekistan’s initiative, is already operating in Fuzuli, a reminder that across the Turkic world, symbolism now arrives with scaffolding, as moral commitments translate into bricks, classrooms, and enduring institutions.

The Gabala Declaration’s emphasis on regional peace, stability, and balanced diplomacy captures a mature recognition: the Turkic world’s enduring strength lies in cooperation over confrontation. 

In this respect, the OTS stands as a distinctly Eurasian innovation in a fragmented global order, seeking harmony through interdependence, not hierarchy.

Unlike many emerging blocs that define themselves through rivalry, the OTS pursues constructive multilateralism: the capacity to act together without surrendering individuality. 

This model of positive sovereignty enables its members to coordinate across trade, transport, digital governance, and security while remaining open to global engagement. It is integration without subordination, a pragmatic alternative to both isolation and dependency.

The Gabala Summit confirmed that the Turkic world is evolving into a strategic community: one that fuses identity, governance, and security into a coherent structure. 

The OTS has matured from a cultural initiative into a stabilising pole of dialogue, innovation, and collective security stretching across Eurasia. 

Its credibility will now depend on sustained coordination, transparency, and the conversion of declarations into deliverables.

The trajectory, however, is unmistakable. 

From the Caspian to Anatolia, from the steppe to the Danube, the Turkic states are shaping an architecture of cooperation that safeguards their geography, elevates their economies, and amplifies their shared voice. 

What was once heritage has become strategy: a disciplined framework rooted in trust, anchored in institutions, and directed toward the future.

The Turkic century is steadily becoming an institutional reality, a living demonstration that identity, when coupled with governance and will, can produce not nostalgia but agency. 

In the heart of Eurasia, the Turkic world is not only finding its voice; it is designing its own system.