TASHKENT, Uzbekistan
Relations between strategic partners Turkiye and Uzbekistan are expected to reach new highs with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit set for Tuesday.
Diplomatic ties between the two countries were established on March 4, 1992, months after Uzbekistan declared its independence on Aug. 31, 1991. Tashkent and Ankara marked three decades of diplomatic relations on March 4.
Turkiye was also the first country to recognize Uzbekistan's independence on Dec. 16, 1991.
Though relations have had their ups and downs for various reasons over the years, this changed after President Erdogan visited Samarkand in November 2016.
Amidst the revived ties, a new era began between the two nations with the meeting of President Erdogan and his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev during the trip. In October 2017, less than a year after taking office as president, Mirziyoyev became the most-senior Uzbek official to visit Turkiye in 21 years.
Uzbekistan-Turkiye relations were raised to the level of strategic partnership in 2017 as a result of the close friendship and political will between the countries' presidents.
That year, officials from the two nations also held a long-stalled Joint Economic Commission meeting and established the Turkiye-Uzbekistan High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council in 2018.
The Turkish capital Ankara hosted the first meeting of this council in 2020.
The second Uzbekistan-Turkiye High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council is expected during Erdogan's visit to Tashkent on Tuesday. The Turkish president is set to arrive in the Uzbek capital with a large delegation as his visit is expected to bring relations to their highest level through a number of bilateral agreements that will be signed.
The bilateral trade volume, which was over $1.2 billion in 2016, reached $2.1 billion in 2020 and exceeded $3.6 billion in 2021.
Turkiye is among Uzbekistan's top five trade partners and their trade volume is expected to reach $5 billion this year.
Uzbekistan also officially joined the Organization of Turkic States in 2019 and is expected to host the annual summit of the organization on Nov. 11.
