At the initiative of Azerbaijan, which recently assumed the chairmanship of the Organization of Turkic States for the next term, non-governmental organizations of the member countries of the organization are gathering for the first time.
The editorial office reports that today in Baku – at the “Gulustan” Palace – the official opening of the solidarity forum of non-governmental organizations of the member countries of the Organization of Turkic States will take place.
More than 500 civil society representatives from Azerbaijan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Hungary, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus will participate in the forum. This is the largest event organized to date by the State Support Agency for Non-Governmental Organizations of the Republic of Azerbaijan, in terms of total participant numbers.
All delegations are already in Baku. Yesterday, they visited the Alley of Honor, the Alley of Martyrs, the Turkish Martyrs' Memorial, Victory Park, and familiarized themselves with the Heydar Aliyev Center.
Within the framework of the forum, which will start today, two panel discussions will be held. In the panel titled “Zangazur Corridor: A Bridge Connecting the Turkic Geography,” preparation for the new situation following the opening of the Zangazur Corridor, and the initiatives of Turkic world civil society institutions in this direction will be discussed.
The second panel will be the “I Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan NGO Cooperation Forum.” Notably, bilateral NGO cooperation forums have taken place: Azerbaijan-Turkey in 2022, Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan in 2023, and Uzbekistan-Azerbaijan in 2024. As a continuation of this series, this year, an exchange of experience and knowledge among NGOs will be conducted on a bilateral basis with Kazakhstan, and opportunities for deepening cooperation will be explored. Similar events are planned to be held with Kyrgyzstan, Hungary, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and Turkmenistan in the upcoming period.
Today's discussions at the “Gulustan” Palace in Baku will conclude with an artistic and cultural program.
Tomorrow, the forum will continue its work in the city of Nakhchivan. In Nakhchivan, a city that entered the history of the Organization of Turkic States with the “Nakhchivan Agreement” of 2009 and holds great symbolic and spiritual significance for the organization, the establishment of a Platform for NGOs of the member countries of the organization is expected. This will become an important lasting legacy of the forum. Azerbaijan, as the current chair of the Organization of Turkic States, will lead the Platform. NGOs from 8 countries will unite within the Platform.
It should be noted that in April of this year, the Global South NGO Platform was also established in Baku with the participation of civil society institutions from 115 countries, covering two-thirds of the world's regions. This year, the first meeting of NGOs from the D-8 countries, known as the “Islamic Eight,” where 60 percent of the world's Muslims live, was also organized in Azerbaijan. It was specifically emphasized during a panel discussion titled “Azerbaijani NGOs Open to the World: A Technique for Uniting Against Isolation” within the framework of the Azerbaijan NGO Cooperation Forum in Khankendi on October 20, 2025, that the greatest success of Azerbaijani NGOs in the last 2 years has been their opening up to the world. The establishment of the Platform for NGOs of the member countries of the Organization of Turkic States is an important component of the ongoing process in this direction.
Tomorrow in Nakhchivan, within the framework of the forum, panel discussions titled “Towards WUF13 - A First in the Turkic World” will also be organized. During the panel discussions, the scale and speed of Azerbaijan's massive construction and restoration work in Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur, serving as an example for post-conflict regions worldwide, will be in focus. Furthermore, Turkic world NGOs will be invited to actively participate in the 13th World Urban Forum, which will be held in Azerbaijan in 2026.
On November 26, 2025, participants of the solidarity forum of non-governmental organizations of the member countries of the Organization of Turkic States will visit several locations in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. The forum is expected to conclude with the adoption of a joint statement.