Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- On 14 October, the 8th Meeting of the Official Foreign Policy Research Centers of the Member States and Observers of the Organization of Turkic States (OTC), dedicated to the development of trade and economic cooperation and transport and logistics interconnectedness in the OTC space, began on 14 October in Tashkent.

The heads and experts of the Institute for Strategic and Interregional Studies under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan (ISMI), the Center for Analysis of International Relations of Azerbaijan, the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Kazakhstan, the National Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Kyrgyzstan, the Center for Strategic Studies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, the Institute of Foreign Affairs and trade at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary are attending the event.

Director of ISMI Eldor Aripov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan Gairat Fazylov, Deputy Secretary General of OTC Gismat Gozalov addressed the participants of the event with a welcoming speech.

Within the framework of the Meeting, the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding between the analytical centers of the OTC countries took place.

The document is aimed at creating conditions for maintaining regular contacts and developing comprehensive cooperation between the participants in order to facilitate the further process of integration within the Organization.

A wide range of issues have been identified as priorities for cooperation, including foreign policy and security, regional sustainable development, promotion of foreign economic relations, and other relevant areas of mutually beneficial cooperation.

Various forms and mechanisms of interaction have been fixed, including the exchange of experts, scientific publications, research and preparation of scientific papers, joint organization of conferences, meetings, seminars, training programs.

Commenting on the signing of the memorandum, Akramjon Nematov, First Deputy Director of the ISMI, emphasized that this would give an additional impetus to the overall process of expert support for the activities of the Organization of Turkic States, the development of cooperation between research and analytical centers of the OTC member countries and observers.

The expert meeting, organized for the first time in Uzbekistan by the Institute for Strategic and Interregional Studies under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, brought together over 60 prominent representatives of the leading think tanks of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Hungary, as well as the OTC Secretariat.

Heads of transport and logistics companies, representatives of associations of international freight forwarders, road carriers, logistics, as well as profile scientists and specialists from universities of Uzbekistan, including the University of World Economy and Diplomacy, Tashkent State University of Oriental Studies, Tashkent State Transport University are also invited to participate in the forum.