What OTS is and how it works

The treaty, and who may accede

The Nakhchivan Agreement was done at Nakhchivan on 3 October 2009 in a single original copy, in Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkish and English, all texts equally authentic, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey holds it as depositary. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and the Republic of Turkey signed it. Article 22 concludes the agreement for an indefinite period and brings it into force on the thirtieth day after the depositary receives the third written notification, which fell on 17 November 2010.

The same article sets the test for anybody else. After entry into force the agreement is open to accession by Turkic speaking states, and it enters into force for an acceding state on the thirtieth day after the depositary receives its instrument of accession. Uzbekistan took that route. The declaration of the seventh summit, at Baku on 15 October 2019, records its decision to become a full member on the tenth anniversary of the agreement, and adopts a joint statement on the accession.

Article 16 is the other door, and it is wider. Observer status may be granted to states, international organisations and international fora, on a procedure left to the Rules of Procedure rather than written into the treaty. Hungary was already described as the Observer State in that Baku declaration, which also recorded the opening of a representation office in Hungary on 19 September 2019. Turkmenistan was greeted as an observer state at Istanbul on 12 November 2021.

What the English alphabet settles

Article 5 has the Council of Heads of State meeting once a year, and it fixes where: the venue of the next meeting is determined, as a rule, in accordance with the English alphabetical order of the official names of the parties. Article 8 makes the host the chairman until the next regular meeting. Article 10 runs the Secretariat off the same list, appointing the Secretary-General from among the citizens of the parties on a rotational basis in that order, for a term of three years, without the right to prolongation, with deputies drawn from every party but the holder's own. The Secretariat sits in Istanbul. Article 11 gives it a budget formed under a separate treaty among the parties, while each party carries the cost of its own representatives and experts.

Article 17 names the working languages as the state languages of the parties and English. A council founded on common language runs its rotation and its correspondence through the alphabet of a language none of its parties speaks at home.

The renaming

The eighth summit met at Istanbul on 12 November 2021, and its declaration carries the change in the first numbered paragraph: the heads of state decided to change the name of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States to the Organization of Turkic States. The second paragraph adopted the Turkic World Vision 2040 as a strategic document and instructed the preparation of a road map for 2022 to 2026. The third greeted Turkmenistan. The founding treaty was not reopened, and it still carries the older name on its face.

The alphabet

The Turkic World Common Alphabet Commission met at Astana on 29 May 2023, at Baku on 6 May 2024, and at Baku again from 9 to 11 September 2024, where it agreed a proposal for a Common Turkic Alphabet of 34 letters and invited the relevant institutions to support the implementation.

It lands on writing systems that were already moving, and not together. The letters used for Turkish were fixed by Law No. 1353 of 1 November 1928, which ended the validity of the Arabic-based Ottoman script and set the alphabet at 29 letters. Kazakhstan approved a Kazakh alphabet in Latin script by presidential decree No. 569 of 26 October 2017, at 32 letters, with the transition to run to 2025, and amended it by decree No. 637 of 19 February 2018. Kyrgyz is written in Cyrillic. What was agreed at Baku in 2024 is a proposal put to the members rather than an instrument any of them has signed.

Where the grouping stops

Article 4 names two bodies older than the Council itself. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Turkic speaking countries functions under the Istanbul Agreement of 21 November 2008. Cultural work runs through TURKSOY, established when ministers of culture from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Türkiye and Uzbekistan signed an agreement at Almaty on 12 July 1993, sixteen years before Nakhchivan.

TURKSOY shows what a test of language admits that a treaty among states cannot. Its roster took in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Altai, Sakha, Tyva and Khakassia inside the Russian Federation, and Gagauzia in Moldova, none of them sovereign, all holding observer standing. Accession under Article 22 is open to Turkic speaking states, so a Turkic speaking population that is not a state has no route into the organisation at all.

The declaration of the ninth summit, at Samarkand on 11 November 2022, welcomed observer status for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The Security Council, in resolution 541 of 18 November 1983, called upon all states not to recognise any Cypriot state other than the Republic of Cyprus. This catalogue files one record for the island, and settles nothing beyond that.

The other memberships

Article 19 says the agreement shall not affect the rights and obligations of the parties under other international treaties, and the member records show how much that has to cover. Hungary joined the European Union on 1 May 2004 and the Schengen Area on 21 December 2007. Türkiye joined the Council of Europe on 9 August 1949, and Azerbaijan on 25 February 2001. Kazakhstan joined the Eurasian Economic Union on 29 May 2014 and Kyrgyzstan on 23 December 2014. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on 26 April 1996, and Uzbekistan on 15 June 2001.