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A Türkiye cleansed of terrorism will become a strategic threshold for greater economic, cultural and political unity across the Turkic world, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Deputy Chair Kürşad Zorlu said Monday.
Speaking at the “Turkic World Relevant Institutions and Organizations Consultation Meeting” in Ankara, Zorlu, who also heads the party’s relations with Turkic states, said this vision aligns with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “Century of Türkiye” foreign policy goals.
“One of the most important pillars of the Century of Türkiye is building an institutional and multifaceted structure in relations with the Turkic world,” Zorlu said. “We are making a new beginning that will accelerate the Century of Turkic World.”
The meeting brought together 15 public institutions directly tied to the Turkic world, covering sectors from education and culture to diaspora affairs. Zorlu said the aim was to strengthen coordination, pool resources and unite around common projects.
Türkiye has been a driving force in the Organization of Turkic States (OTS), with Zorlu noting the bloc’s growing influence beyond its regional borders. The combined gross domestic product (GDP) of member states reached $2.1 trillion in 2024 and is expected to surpass $3 trillion by 2030, potentially making the OTS the eighth-largest economic bloc globally.
Trade among Turkic states has surged sixfold over the past two decades, while their share of global trade has risen by 70%, hitting 2.42% in 2024. Türkiye’s trade with its Turkic partners has grown fourteenfold since 2002, reaching $26 billion, with total intra-Turkic trade standing at $70.3 billion.
Investment ties are also strengthening. In 2002, there were virtually no companies with Turkic state capital in Türkiye; by March 2025, that number had risen to 5,405.
Zorlu said ongoing OTS initiatives, including efforts to enable identity and travel integration across member states, would further bind the region together.
“As Türkiye, we are determined to lead this process and move forward shoulder to shoulder with our sister states,” he said.
For Ankara, deepening ties with the Turkic world is not only an economic opportunity but also a geopolitical strategy to reinforce stability at home and project influence abroad, a role Zorlu argued will only grow once Türkiye fully eliminates terrorism.
Under the “terror-free Türkiye” initiative launched last year, the PKK terrorist group announced its dissolution in May. It began disarming last July, ending four decades of violence that claimed more than 40,000 lives in Türkiye, as well as in Iraq and Syria.
