Azerbaijan’s armiya.az, citing the press center of the county’s Defense Ministry, reports that Azerbaijan and four Central Asian nations, including Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, will conduct a joint operational-tactical command-and-staff drill in July this year.   

Delegations of the defense ministries of the countries reportedly participated in a conference that took place in the Kazakh city of Aktau to discuss a number of issues related to preparations for the exercise, dubbed “Birlestik-2024” (We Are United – 2024).  

The exercise will be conducted at the Oymash training range in Kazakhstan, as well as on Cape Tokmak in the Caspian Sea.

The purpose of the exercise is reportedly in rehearsing coordination and interaction in combat missions to identify the armed conflict locations.   

Recall, the First Deputy Minister of Defense of Kazakhstan, Lieutenant-General Marat Khusainov, who is also Chief of the General Staff of the country’s Armed Forces, said in January this year that the “Birlestik-2024” military exercise will involve the naval forces, the Air Force, Special Operations Forces of the Regional Command "West", and military contingents of Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

It is to be noted that Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are member nations of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS), formerly called the Turkic Council or the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States, which is an international organization comprising prominent independent Turkic countries: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkiye and Uzbekistan.  It is an intergovernmental organization whose overarching aim is promoting comprehensive cooperation among Turkic-speaking states.  First proposed by the then Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in 2006, it was founded on October 3, 2009, in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan.  The General Secretariat is in Istanbul.

Hungary and Turkmenistan are the observer states.  Hungary received the observer status in 2018, while Turkmenistan received the observer status in 2021.