President Aliyev attends ceremony marking 550th anniversary of Kazakh Khanate

/By AzerNews/

By Aynur Karimova

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who is on a working visit to Kazakhstan to attend the Summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States, joined the ceremonial meeting in honor of the 550th anniversary of the Kazakh Khanate held in the Palace of Independence in Astana city on September 11.

The event started with performance of the state anthem of Kazakhstan. Later President Nursultan Nazarbayev congratulated the Kazakh people on the occasion of the 550th anniversary of the Kazakh Khanate, welcomed the foreign guests, including the Azerbaijani and Kyrgyz Presidents, the Chairman of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey Ismet Yilmaz and the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkmenistan Sapardurdu Toyliyev.

President Nazarbayev spoke of the history of the Kazakh Khanate, founded in 1465, which played huge role in development and preservation of the national culture and statehood traditions.

Noting that Turkish-speaking states have common roots and history, the Kazakh president stressed the necessity of unity, solidarity and cooperation among the Turkic states.

"The peoples of independent Turkic states - Turkey, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and more than 200 million representatives of the Turkic peoples, scattered around the world come from one of the great ancestor - Turkic warrior," he said.

The Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States (Turkic Council) was established in 2009 as an international intergovernmental organization, with the overarching aim of promoting comprehensive cooperation among Turkic-speaking countries. Its four founding member is Azerbaijan.