President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday held a phone call with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The Turkish Presidency’s Directorate of Communications said in a statement that the two leaders discussed bilateral relations and regional and global issues. Erdoğan also congratulated Mirziyoyev’s 67th birthday.

The directorate said Erdoğan told Mirziyoyev that he had faith that Türkiye-Uzbekistan relations would advance to a further level both on a bilateral level and in multilateral platforms, particularly the Organization of Turkic States (OTS).

Erdoğan hosted Mirziyoyev last month in Ankara. The cultural kinship between the two countries, which are part of the OTS, was the major driving force of relations. Türkiye was the first country to recognize Uzbekistan’s independence in 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As part of then-President Turgut Özal’s plan to deepen relations with Turkic-speaking Central Asian countries, Ankara sought to reach out to Tashkent under the Islam Karimov administration. Yet, ties deteriorated over political differences in the following decades. President Erdoğan’s 2016 visit to Uzbekistan, a key country in the region with its location, history, rich cultural values and economic potential, changed the course of relations. Mirziyoyev’s visit to Türkiye in 2017, as the first sitting Uzbek president to make such a visit in 21 years, further reanimated the relations.