President Aliyev: Turkish-Azerbaijani ties at highest level [UPDATE]

12 April 2021 12:47 (UTC+04:00)

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By Aisha Jabbarova

President Ilham Aliyev has said that Azerbaijan’s ties with Turkey are at the highest level and that the two countries have unity in all spheres.

Aliyev made remarks while receiving the outgoing Turkish Ambassador Erkan Ozoral on April 10.

Commenting on Turkey’s political support for Azerbaijan during the 44-day Karabakh war last year, Aliyev said that the support given by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from the first hours of the war “inspired us and stopped certain foreign forces interfering in this war.”

“There is not a single area in which we do not cooperate. In recent years, there has been great development in all areas. The fact that our citizens travel to fraternal countries without passports, that is, with an internal document, explicitly shows how deep our relations are,” Aliyev said.

He described the Azerbaijani-Turkish ties as multifaceted.

Aliyev awarded Ozoral the high order of the Azerbaijani state, the Order of Friendship for his work “to bring the two fraternal peoples even closer to each other.”

“The Azerbaijani public, public organizations operating in Azerbaijan, media representatives and government officials, including myself, highly value your work,” the president told Ozoral.

In turn, Ozoral said that he always received support from all institutions and officials at all levels, including President Ilham Aliyev during his tenure as the ambassador.

The hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia resumed after that latter started firing at Azerbaijani civilians and military positions starting September 27, 2020. The war ended on November 10 with the signing of a trilateral peace deal by the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders.

The peace agreement stipulated the return of Azerbaijan's Armenian-occupied Kalbajar, Aghdam and Lachin regions. Before the signing of the deal, the Azerbaijani army had liberated around 300 villages, settlements, city centres and historic Shusha city. The Azerbaijani army declared a victory against the Armenian troops. The signed agreement obliged Armenia to withdraw its troops from the Azerbaijani lands that it has occupied since the early 1990s.