Uzbekistan joins the union of Azerbaijan and Turkey

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev attended the informal summit of the Organization of Turkic States in Budapest on Wednesday and made a number of proposals. He stressed the urgency of signing the Agreement on Strategic Partnership, Eternal Friendship and Brotherhood of the Turkic states initiated by the Uzbek side. Yesterday, Mirziyoyev signed a law legally consolidating the allied status of Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan and formalizing Tashkent’s accession to the strategic Shusha Declaration, which was previously a bilateral agreement between Turkey and Azerbaijan. Uzbekistan is also ready to provide allies, including Russia, with the opportunity to enter the country using internal identity cards.

Uzbekistan intends to provide its allies, including not only Azerbaijan, but also Russia and Kazakhstan, with the opportunity to enter the country using an internal identity card. The corresponding provision is contained in the decree of the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev dated May 21, 2025. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been instructed to start negotiations with the relevant countries within three months and make proposals based on their results.

“The signing of the treaty on allied relations and joining the Shusha Declaration can be considered the formation of a new alliance,” Sokhbet Mammadov, head of the Irevan analytical center, told NG. At the same time, the expert stressed that Azerbaijan does not raise the issue of creating allied organizations as opposed to other integration associations. “Baku is establishing allied and partnership relations at both the bilateral and multilateral levels, based on its national interests, and is strengthening ties, including with Turkic–speaking countries,” Mammadov said.

The Shusha Declaration is a strategic agreement on joint defense signed in June 2021 between Turkey and Azerbaijan. The choice of the signing site was symbolic: the city of Shushi, the major center of Nagorno-Karabakh, passed to Azerbaijan as a result of the 44-day war lost by Armenia in 2020.

“Tashkent’s joining the Shusha Declaration is a success for the Turkish pan-Turkists and Atlanticists,” political analyst Armen Khanbabyan told NG. In his opinion, this indicates that the Uzbek side continues to purposefully pursue a diversified foreign policy with an emphasis on the West. At the same time, this fact marks a significant success of the policy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who positions himself as a “collector” of the Turkic world under the auspices of Istanbul. “Erdogan can count Tashkent’s annexation as his asset, because Uzbekistan is the leading country in post–Soviet Central Asia in terms of population and economic growth,” the expert believes.

It should be noted that the Shusha Declaration refers not only to military-political, but also to economic, as well as humanitarian cooperation. And with the accession of Uzbekistan, all these aspects acquire a trilateral format. Simply put, in the event of a military conflict, Ankara and Baku will now have to provide Tashkent with more than just “moral” support.

It also provides for cooperation in the field of the defense industry, joint military exercises, and the exchange of intelligence information.

“It is hardly worth mentioning that Turkey is a member of NATO, which means that from now on the military and political influence of the North Atlantic Alliance in Uzbekistan will consistently increase. In fact, Ankara is trying on the role of a coordinator in the field of security issues not only in Transcaucasia, but also in Central Asia,” Khanbabyan said.

However, the Turks began to share their achievements in the military field a few years ago. In March 2022, the defense ministers of Turkey and Uzbekistan signed an expanded framework agreement on military cooperation. The practical expression of this partnership is the supply of Turkish EJDER 4×4 armored vehicles and the regular holding of joint military exercises. At the same time, Ankara, not limited to Uzbekistan, is actively developing ties with all Central Asian countries, including the Persian-speaking Tajikistan. However, the closest coordination and implementation of large-scale initiatives is observed precisely within the framework of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS).

This vector for deepening cooperation is also confirmed by future plans. The General Secretary of the OTG Kubanychbek Omuraliev told the resource Report.az It is reported that in Istanbul, on the sidelines of the IDEF-2025 defense exhibition, a meeting of heads of defense enterprises of the member countries will be held for the first time. According to him, this will be a key step towards the formation of multilateral cooperation in the military-industrial complex. The next step will be a meeting of defense ministers. At the same time, a “Common Security Concept” is being developed for a coordinated response to regional threats and strengthening collective security.

As Omuraliev emphasized, security and defense are becoming key areas on the agenda of the OTG. The strategic basis for this is laid by the Istanbul and Samarkand Declarations, as well as the “View on the Turkic World – 2040” concept, which provides for the creation of a network of cooperation and information exchange. Its main task is to increase the effectiveness of the fight against radicalization, extremism, Islamophobia, xenophobia and terrorism, as well as to strengthen the border security of the participating countries.

Political scientist Derya Karayev, against the background of the activity of Azerbaijani diplomacy in the region, can conclude that the “pressure” from Turkey has temporarily decreased, whose course may have been perceived by the leaders of Central Asia as excessive. Accordingly, there is a tendency to highlight the figure of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev as a potentially less “annoying” or more acceptable integrator within the OTG.

As for cooperation in the defense sector, despite the statements and meetings, its practical implementation in terms of serious rearmament may face financial constraints in most of the participating countries.

Derya Karayev also noted that the declared alliance between Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan should not be interpreted as a classic military alliance. A more accurate description is probably “benevolent neutrality.” This implies that Uzbekistan will most likely not participate in hostilities on the side of Turkey or Azerbaijan, as well as provide support to their opponents. Factors such as the lack of an Uzbek military presence abroad and a direct land border between the two countries support this view.