Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The leaders of the diaspora organizations of member countries of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States have met in Ankara, Azerbaijan's State Committee on Work with Diaspora told Trend news agency on May 15.

The second such meeting, chaired by Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag, who is charged with representing Turks living abroad, was attended by the heads of diaspora organizations of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey. First Deputy Chairman of the State Committee, Valeh Hajiyev, represented Azerbaijan at the meeting.

In his remarks, Chairman of the Turks living Abroad and Relative Associations Department, Kemal Yurtnach, noted that this meeting is the most important one among the meetings held to date, adding that its significance will be evident in the coming years.

"In particular, we consider it very important to accomplish this step with all the Turkic countries. I believe that Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan will also join us," Yurtnach said.

The deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani state committee in his speech stressed the importance of the unification of Turkic nations in a single diaspora to address the problems facing the Turkic world.

Hajiyev explained the planned holding of the first forum of the heads of diaspora organizations of the member states of the Turkic states' council in Baku with the fact that Azerbaijan also considers this question important.

Deputy PM Bozdag said that the joint efforts of the diaspora abroad play an important role in solving many problems.

He noted that the Turkish republics should make the interconnections productive, calling for relying on joint work on a common culture.

"As a government, we will do our best to support the work in this direction," Bozdag said.

Then, the member countries of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States signed the "strategy on joint activities of diaspora organizations of Turkic speaking states."

As part of the meeting, discussions were also held on the program of the first Forum of the heads of diaspora organizations of the Cooperation Council member countries, which will be held on June 21 in Baku. It was decided that during the forum, in addition to the general session, panel discussions will be organized in three directions - America and Canada; Europe; Asia and the CIS.

The first meeting of the heads of diaspora organizations of the Cooperation Council was held on January 24-25 in Baku.