Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- On 6 February 2020, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan Abdulaziz Kamilov took part in an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs (CMFA) of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States (Turkic Council) in Baku.

The event was attended by the heads of the foreign affairs agencies of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, as well as Hungary and Turkmenistan.

During the meeting, the main priority areas of interaction of Turkic-speaking countries were identified, such as trade and investment, transport and transit, energy and new technologies, support for small and medium-sized businesses, tourism, culture and education.

In the speeches at the meeting, there was an increase in world interest in the Turkic Council, as evidenced by the appeals addressed to the Secretariat by individual countries on granting them observer status.

“Our organization is turning into a broad and open platform for cooperation between states based on common historical roots and common civilization,” said the head of the delegation of Uzbekistan, speaking at the Ministerial Council. In this regard, the proposal was supported to develop a regulation on observer status and the Secretariat to study the establishment of a partner institution in the Turkic Council.

The Uzbek side welcomed the decision made at the 37th meeting of the Turkic Permanent Council on November 30, 2019 in Osh, on declaring Khiva the “Cultural Capital of the Turkic World” this year.

The Minister informed the meeting participants in detail about the main provisions of the Address of the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev Oliy Majlis on 24 January, which defines the main directions of the country’s development and declared 2020 the “Year of the development of science, education and the digital economy.”