The Secretary General of the Organization of the Turkic States, H.E. Baghdad Amreyev addressed the third Caspian Business Forum organized by Caspian Policy Center (CPC) on 19 September 2022 on the margins of the UN 77th General Assembly in New York. The event brought together policymakers, business leaders, and members of the academic community to discuss the emerging business landscape across the South Caucasus and Central Asia.
The Forum was hosted by the Chief Executive Officer of the CPC, Mr. Efghan Nifti and the Security and Political Program Chair and board member of the CPC, Ambassador Richard E. Hoagland. Senior representatives of the OTS Member States, including Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, H.E. Adil Tursunov, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Türkiye, H.E. Sedat Önal, Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the United States, H.E. Hazar Ibrahim also took part in the Forum, informed the audience on the recent developments in the region and highlighted the increasing importance of the OTS as a leading facilitator for multilateral cooperation processes in a number of areas.
Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources of the United States, H.E. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt and USAID Deputy Administrator of the Bureau for Asia, Ms. Änjali Kaur delivered keynote addresses at the Forum. They underlined the importance of energy diversification, global efforts for transition to clean renewable energy, and highlighted the significant role that the Caspian countries play for greater regional connectivity and global energy security and reaffirmed the commitment of the USA for further cooperation in the Caspian region, particularly in the field of energy and connectivity.
In his address, Secretary General Baghdad Amreyev underlined that the OTS represents an increasingly effective platform for collaboration and this promises to generate greater mutual support and solidarity in line with the needs of its members in a variety of political and sectoral areas of cooperation. Having stressed that economy, transport connectivity and energy are on the high agenda of the Organization’s long-term strategy namely “Turkic World Vision – 2040”, the Secretary General informed the participants of the Forum on the efforts devoted to ensuring trade facilitation in the OTS region, increasing trade turnover among member countries, simplification and digitalization of transport and customs procedures along the Trans-Caspian East West Middle Corridor, increasing the number of financial instruments available to private sector diversification and development, particularly micro, small, and medium size enterprises and improving investment climate in the Turkic region and widening multilateral cooperation in the energy sector.
Baghdad Amreyev stressed the importance of the Turkic countries for the West, particularly in addressing global and regional challenges and expressed the readiness of the OTS to closely work with the US government bodies operating in the Caspian region, as well as businessmen.
