Military cooperation among Azerbaijan, Türkiye, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan is becoming more practical and visible, but it has not yet developed into a unified four-country alliance. The ties are taking shape through different channels: a formal alliance between Azerbaijan and Türkiye, an allied-relations treaty between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, and multilateral exercises involving Central Asian states.
These arrangements create opportunities for joint training and coordination while allowing each government to maintain its own security policy. Shared Turkic identity and diplomatic ties help bring the countries together, but practical military cooperation depends on more than political language. Exercises can build familiarity between units and test communications; they do not, by themselves, establish a joint command, common defense obligations or a permanent regional force.
The closest military relationship among the four countries is between Azerbaijan and Türkiye. The 2021 Shusha Declaration formalized their allied relationship and called for closer defense cooperation, including joint training, exercises, personnel exchanges and greater interoperability between their armed forces. It also provides for cooperation with the armed forces of other friendly states.
Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan established another formal political link in August 2024, when their governments signed a Treaty on Allied Relations. The agreement provides an allied framework, but it should not be treated as evidence that the two countries, or the wider group, created a joint military command or a four-country defense pact.
Kazakhstan’s role is different. Its participation in multilateral exercises alongside Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan shows that military contacts extend beyond bilateral partnerships. The available examples, however, point to a flexible network of cooperation rather than a single structure binding all four countries to common defense commitments.
Exercises provide a clearer view of how the ties work in practice. In July 2024, Azerbaijan sent personnel and equipment to Kazakhstan for the Birlestik exercise. The drill was organized under a plan signed by the defense ministries of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It therefore involved five countries, not the four at the center of this analysis, and included activity at the Oymasha training ground and in the Caspian Sea.
Birlestik demonstrated that military cooperation can extend across Central Asia and the Caspian, with countries contributing personnel and different service branches to a shared exercise. It also showed the limits of the format: a multinational drill provides a venue for practice and coordination, but does not automatically create permanent obligations or establish that participants would act together in a real crisis.
A more recent example is Power of Unity–2026, a trilateral exercise involving Azerbaijan, Türkiye and Uzbekistan. It opened on 22 September at the Gizilgaya training center in Azerbaijan’s Khojavand region. Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said the exercise was intended to improve practical skills, exchange experience and help participating units coordinate their tasks.
Command-and-staff training took place at sites in Khojavand, Nakhchivan and Azerbaijan’s Caspian sector. The training focused on headquarters deployment, assessing changing conditions, commanders’ decisions and coordination among the participating forces. A later phase at the Boyuk-Zira training area involved Azerbaijani naval vessels and included scenarios such as protecting coastal infrastructure, clearing mines and responding to the seizure of a vessel.
Those objectives and scenarios were stated by Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry and describe planned training. They do not independently demonstrate how well the forces performed. Kazakhstan’s absence from Power of Unity–2026 also underscores that participation varies by format.
The immediate value of such exercises is practical. Troops from different countries can learn how partners communicate, plan and carry out assigned tasks. Staff training can expose differences in procedures before an emergency forces commanders to work through them under pressure. Repeated exercises can make military contacts more routine.
The political signal is also significant. Azerbaijan and Türkiye have a formal alliance, while Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan have signed their own treaty on allied relations. Exercises involving several states show that cooperation can extend beyond those bilateral ties. Taken together, the developments point to an increasingly active regional security network.
The network should not, however, be mistaken for a mutual-defense organization. The evidence does not show that Azerbaijan, Türkiye, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have created a common command, agreed on a shared military doctrine or made a collective commitment to respond to an attack on any one of them. Those would be substantially deeper steps than holding joint drills or signing bilateral agreements.
Each government also has its own geography, security concerns and external relationships. Cooperation can grow while national policies remain distinct. That flexibility may make joint activities politically workable, but it also limits how far coordination can go. Regular exercises do not necessarily resolve differences in equipment, communications, command structures or strategic priorities.
The exercises likewise do not establish that the four countries are making a coordinated break with Russia-led security structures. They show that the countries can work together in selected formats, but do not reveal how each government would balance its wider commitments in a crisis.
The most defensible conclusion is that military cooperation among Azerbaijan, Türkiye, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan is becoming more practical and visible while remaining uneven. The Azerbaijan–Türkiye alliance is the firmest bilateral foundation. Azerbaijan’s treaty with Uzbekistan adds another formal link, and exercises such as Birlestik and Power of Unity create opportunities for cross-border training. Whether these connections develop into a more institutionalized regional security arrangement will depend on continued exercises, sustained political coordination and efforts to address the practical differences that joint training can expose.
