Uzbekistan proposes a Turkic treaty on legal help in commercial cases

Uzbekistan's president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, proposed a multilateral treaty "On Mutual Legal Assistance in Commercial Matters" for the Organization of Turkic States at its summit in Ankara on 30 October, his office said.

The proposal, presented as a way to protect the interests of entrepreneurs, comes with a digital platform for the electronic exchange of mutual legal assistance requests and documents. Mirziyoyev also proposed regular political consultations and an "Organization of Turkic States Plus" format with third countries at the level of sectoral ministers, saying these dialogues "should focus on implementing concrete joint projects in trade, transport, investment and other priority areas"; a "Turkic World 100" programme of one hundred strategic joint investment and industrial projects, including rare minerals processing and local production of green energy equipment, drawing on the Turkic Investment Fund and international financial institutions; a network of logistics complexes under joint management to make the Middle Corridor a unified economic system; and a Turkic Tourism Alliance with a multilateral agreement on travel with ID cards. Uzbekistan also offered annual educational grants to students from the member states.

The 13th summit was attended by the presidents of Türkiye, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Turkmenistan and by Azerbaijan's foreign minister. It adopted the Ankara Declaration and other documents, backed Uzbekistan's candidate, Mirvokhid Azimov, for Secretary General and agreed to hold the next summit in Uzbekistan next year, the presidency said. It published no text or timetable for the proposed treaty.

The day before, Mirziyoyev and Türkiye's president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, met in Ankara and signed an agreement establishing a High-Level Business Support Council, the presidency said. A package of bilateral documents was also signed: a protocol expanding the list of goods under the two countries' Preferential Trade Agreement, an intergovernmental agreement on social security with an administrative agreement on its implementation, and an additional protocol amending the protocol of 29 March 2022 on the advance exchange of information on goods and vehicles crossing the border.

Mutual legal assistance is a live topic in the region: Kazakhstan's president signed the law ratifying the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters on 6 October. For Uzbekistan's institutions more widely, see our country governance briefing.