The Turkic world meets in Türkiye this autumn, with joint military drills on the agenda

The Organization of Turkic States will hold its regular summit for this year in Türkiye in the autumn. The timetable was set by decisions taken at the 12th Summit, convened last year in Gabala, Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has proposed that joint military exercises involving member states be held in Azerbaijan in 2026. The proposal forms part of a wider discussion on expanding defence and security cooperation within the organisation.

An informal summit hosted by Kazakhstan in Turkistan earlier this year convened under the theme "Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development". Joint space projects and a shared technology hub between member states were raised at that meeting.

MHA Analysis

The Organization of Turkic States has shifted its agenda across the last two summits from economic cooperation towards defence and technology; the joint-exercise proposal and the AI-themed informal summit are two ends of the same move. The bloc's persistent weakness has been that its decisions attach to no binding mechanism. That is the test for the autumn: if joint exercises acquire a calendar and a budget, the organisation moves past declarations of intent for the first time.