Tokayev at the OTS summit: a convention on Turkic civilization heritage, Turkistan in 2027 and 40 million tonnes of cargo

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev spoke at the 13th Organization of Turkic States summit in Ankara on 30 October. He said that in the first nine months of this year Kazakhstan's rail freight with OTS members rose 10 percent to nearly 40 million tonnes and road freight rose 20 percent to 6.5 million tonnes. Cargo on the Middle Corridor grew 30 percent, with transit up 90 percent. Kazakhstan's trade with OTS members is approaching 10 billion dollars, 40 percent more than last year.

On culture, Tokayev said work continues on the Turkic Civilization Center and the “Mangilik El” centre promoting steppe civilization, both proposed at the Turkistan meeting, and he urged a quick adoption of the convention on preserving Turkic civilization heritage. He praised the Turkic Academy's three-volume “Sacred Geography of the Turkic World”, five-volume catalogue of Old Turkic written monuments and 25-volume dictionary of modern Turkic languages. The Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation has built the Turkic Heritage digital platform.

He recalled that the Altai international festival was held in Kazakhstan this year and that Turkistan will be the cultural capital of the Islamic world in 2027, when a Khoja Ahmed Yasawi forum on literature and language and a meeting of museum specialists from the Turkic and Islamic worlds are planned. Kazakhstan is also preparing a seven-volume academic history of the country.

Tokayev said it would be right to invite Russia to join an “OTS+” format or take part as an observer, noting that Russia supports the Altai project and many Turkic peoples have lived there historically. He ended with a Kazakh proverb: “Prosperity lies in unity, abundance in harmony.” On the organization itself, he said OTS works in 60 areas, some of them overlapping, proposed a Council of Permanent Representatives and said the OTS must not become a military alliance.