Turkey and Azerbaijan are not only ordinary allies and neighbors, they are also two strategic partners, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said on Tuesday during an official visit to Baku.
Davutoğlu arrived in the Azerbaijani capital late on Monday when he flew from Damascus with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Elmar Mammadyarov. The two ministers had participated in the 36th session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) held in the Syrian capital.
In Turkey, everybody has different political thoughts, however, everybody attaches importance to relations with Azerbaijan, Davutoğlu said on Tuesday at a joint press conference following talks with Mammadyarov, the Anatolia news agency reported. "Turkey and Azerbaijan are not two ordinary friend, neighbor and brother countries, they are at the same time two strategic partners.
One of the fundamental foreign policy priorities which is embraced by everybody in Turkey — no matter what political thought those [people] have — is the existing strategic partnership with Azerbaijan," Davutoğlu was quoted as saying by the Cihan news agency.
The minister, whose visit to Baku is his second official visit upon being appointed to his current post earlier this month, underlined that nobody should have doubts about Turkey’s sensitivities concerning Azerbaijan.
"Our Azerbaijani siblings should know that Turkey will be by the side of Azerbaijan in the future as well, as it has been in history,‘ Davutoğlu said. ’Our message intended for the actors in the region, particularly intended for Armenia, is very open and clear. The region should now be cleansed of occupations, stresses and high tensions,‘ he added, in an apparent reference to the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.
The way of resolving frozen conflicts in the region passes through setting bilateral, multilateral and all kinds of relations oriented toward resolution in motion, Davutoğlu said, adding: ’Past incidents showed that frozen problems are like bombs ready to explode in our hands and have the potential of increasing regional tensions. Now, the time has come to get rid of these bombs which are ready to explode.‘
Turkey, in every platform, has been voicing the need to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Davutoğlu said, stressing that Turkey supports the resolution of the conflict within the framework of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, while also calling on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group of countries, mediating talks between Yerevan and Baku to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, to intensify their efforts.
Mammadyarov said they had reviewed bilateral relations between the countries and that the relationship between the two neighbors has been continuing well. He expressed confidence for the future relations between Ankara and Baku.
Mammadyarov said his country is not satisfied with the trade turnover level of $2 billion between Turkey and Azerbaijan: ’We also discussed cooperation in the fields of energy, economy and culture. Our countries have signed around 150 documents in total, but we don’t have to stop at what has been achieved."
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