The seventh Turkic-speaking Countries' Summit commenced in Istanbul yesterday with the leaders of the five Turkic speaking countries in attendance.

The summit will end today, following the declaration of a final communique. Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, summit host, Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said participant leaders would find opportunities to evaluate bilateral and regional issues and to boost ties among their countries. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev, Turkmen President Saparmurad Turkmenbasi and Azeri President Haydar Aliyev are all attending. At the last minute, Uzbek President Islam Kerimov announced that he would not attend, but in his absence Uzbek Parliamentary Speaker Erkin Halilov attended the summit. Kerimov did not attended last year's Baku summit either. Drawing attention to the fact that there has been certain elements that have threatened the stability of the Turkic speaking countries, Sezer noted that a joint struggle and cooperation were needed to eliminate those threats. Azeri President Aliyev said Turkic speaking countries need more summits of this nature to secure stability in their regions. Kazakh President Nazarbayev stressed importance of the summit, and said that the summit was a tool to further the cooperation amongst member countries. Kyrgyz President Akayev said Turkey's EU membership issue was exciting even for his country, and added that they perceived Turkey to be an example for them. Turkmen President Turkmenbasi called on the other leaders to give more support to summits of this nature in order to create a union of Turkish states. Emphasizing that the summit should be made more powerful, he said the participant countries shared the same culture, history, religion and language. The summit has been held on a regular basis since 1992, when the first meeting took place in Ankara. Last year's summit was held in the Azeri capital Baku. The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline project, which will transport Azeri oil to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, and the trans-Caspian pipeline project, which will transport Turkmen natural gas to Turkey and the European market, and the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute were among the topics discussed on the first day of the summit.