Azerbaijan joins 4th TURKSOY meeting

By AzerNews

Azerbaijani delegation led by Secretary General of the National Commission of Azerbaijan for UNESCO Gunay Efendiyeva has participated in the 4th meeting of the National Commissions for UNESCO of TURKSOY Member States in Eskisehir, Turkey, which is the cultural capital of the Turkic world for 2013.

The event brought together 135 international experts, scientists and public figures from 14 countries. Along with Turkey, Azerbaijan and other Turkic-speaking states, the event was attended by the representatives of the Turkic autonomy within the Russian Federation and the Republic of Moldova.

Turkish Minister of National Education Nabi Avci, Mayor of Eskishehir Gungez Azim Tuna and TURKSOY General Secretary Dusen Kaseinov talked about the importance of the meeting in Eskisehir.

Participants focused on the issues of preservation and promotion of cultural and natural heritage of the Turkic world.

In her remarks, Efendiyeva highlighted activities of President of Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO and ISESCO, First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva towards preserving the cultural heritage of the country. Then she said that the world community holds an observer position on the destruction of cultural monuments in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, and urged the participants to take a more active position on this issue.

The event was aimed at strengthening cooperation and coordination between the Turkic-speaking states in UNESCO. Four thematic seminars on Intangible cultural heritage, Cultural and Natural heritage, Memory of the World and Education were held during the two-day event.

In conclusion, the meeting decided to organize the next gathering of the UNESCO National Commissions of TURKSOY member countries in Baku.

TURKSOY is an international cultural organization of countries with Turkic populations, whose speaking languages belong to the Turkic language family.

The organization has its roots going back to the 1992 meetings in Baku and Istanbul, where the ministers of culture from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, and Turkmenistan declared their commitment to cooperate in a joint cultural framework. TURKSOY was subsequently established by an agreement signed on July 12, 1993 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Meetings of TURKSOY artists have been held since 1997. Works created by the artists are stored in the TURKSOY art collection.