Daily Sabah (08.10.2026)

Hazel ÇAĞAN ELBİR

The Türkiye-Azerbaijan-Georgia trilateral is evolving into a durable security framework linking regional connectivity and defense cooperation.

The 13th Trilateral Meeting of the Defense Ministers of Türkiye, Azerbaijan and Georgia, held in Shusha on Oct. 2, confirmed a proposition that has gradually hardened into the strategic grammar of the three capitals: the security of the Caucasus cannot be considered separately from the security of these countries. Hosted by Azerbaijani Defense Minister Colonel General Zakir Hasanov, and attended by Turkish National Defense Minister Yaşar Güler and Georgian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Irakli Chikovani, the meeting closed with a protocol and a joint press appearance. Its significance lies less in a single new commitment than in the consolidation of an already functioning minilateral mechanism.

Hasanov opened by recalling the meetings held in Türkiye the previous year and in Georgia the year before. That sequence matters. A format that has reached its 13th iteration, and that rotates among the three capitals, is no longer an ad hoc consultation. It is an institutionalized channel with memory, procedure and an accumulating agenda. Hasanov attributed the high level of relations in significant part to the sincere friendship among the heads of state, and described the Turkish-Azerbaijani-Georgian format as a successful regional cooperation mechanism that can serve as an example for other countries, and that continues to contribute to peace, security and stability.

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