Azerbaijan Applies to Join Islamic G7
On July 27, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu announced that Azerbaijan had applied to join the D-8 (the Islamic version of G7). According to the Turkish Foreign Minister, the D-8 is currently in need of strengthening and expansion.
The D-8 is an international organization for the development of cooperation between Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Turkey. The decision to create the G8 was taken in November 1996 at the Istanbul Conference on Cooperation in Development.
At the fifth D-8 summit in Indonesian Bali in 2006, an agreement on economic preferences was signed. All block members became participants, except Bangladesh. The document provided for the gradual reduction of customs barriers. During the ninth summit in Istanbul in 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested that the organization's members switch to national currencies and expand the number of member countries to twenty. At the same time, the D-8 countries signed a memorandum of understanding with the Islamic Development Bank.
Additionally, Iran supported Azerbaijan's application to join the D-8 Economic Cooperation Organization. "Expansion D-8 can serve as a tool for realizing the organization's goals. We welcome the readiness and desire of our friendly and neighboring country, the Republic of Azerbaijan, to join the D-8," said the Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, speaking at the 20th meeting of the D-8 Ministerial Council in Bangladesh.