Türkiye commemorates 4th anniversary of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh victory

By Esra Tekin

ISTANBUL (AA) – Türkiye on Friday commemorated Azerbaijan on its fourth anniversary of Victory Day, which ended 30 years of Armenian military occupation of Karabakh after a 44-day war in 2020.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan congratulated Azerbaijan and its people “with great enthusiasm and pride.”

"I salute the heroic members" of the Azerbaijani armed forces who brought the battle for the homeland to victory, he said on X.

“We will always remember with gratitude those heroes who gave their lives so that the crescent moon would wave in the skies of Karabakh,” the Turkish president added.

Erdogan’s chief adviser Akif Cagatay Kilic said “our brotherhood, cemented under the motto 'One Nation, Two States,' will continue to grow stronger."

Turkish parliament speaker Numan Kurtulmus also commemorated the "heroic veterans," saying: “May our victory in Karabakh be blessed, and may our brotherhood be everlasting."

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also congratulated Azerbaijan on Victory Day with “great happiness and pride.”

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the victory four years ago was not only of Azerbaijan, but of the entire Turkic world.

Relations between Baku and Yerevan have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

Most of the territory was liberated by Azerbaijan during the war in the fall of 2020, which ended after a Russian-brokered peace agreement that opened the door to normalization and the demarcation of their border.

Azerbaijan established full sovereignty in Karabakh in September 2023, following an "anti-terrorist operation" after which separatist forces in the region surrendered.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have yet to sign peace treaties and normalize ties.