The disclosure of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s intention to invite Ersin Tatar to Azerbaijan for the summit of the Organisation of Turkic States in July has raised alarm in Nicosia, Phileleftheros reports.
Cyprus’s diplomatic moves in this regard are directed towards the European Union, which seems to be the only entity capable of influencing the situation.
The occupying regime invests heavily in Azerbaijan to achieve international recognition. Both Baku and Turkey closely monitor actions to avoid repercussions on a European and international level.
However, Ilham Aliyev’s government consistently pursues actions aiming for a “diplomatic upgrade” of Azerbaijan’s relations with Turkey.
Cyprus has in the past managed to thwart Azerbaijan’s moves targeting the political enhancement of the pseudo-state.
The European Union, a significant economic partner for Baku, remains Cyprus’s strong card in this effort.
According to reports from the Turkish Cypriot press, Aliyev intends to invite Tatar to Azerbaijan to participate in a summit of the Organisation of Turkic States in July. The summit is expected to take place in the city of Shusha.
Aliyev’s statements followed a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Azerbaijani President asserted that an invitation to Tatar “will accelerate the unity of Turkic peoples.”
Meanwhile, the “prime minister” of the occupying regime, Unal Ustel, expressed gratitude to Aliyev in Baku for the invitation extended to Tatar to attend the summer summit of the Organisation of Turkic States in Shusha, “the symbolic city of Karabakh.”
According to Turkish Cypriot media, Ustel, visiting Azerbaijan upon invitation from the Vice President and Secretary-General of the ruling party “New Azerbaijan,” Tahir Budagov, visited the mausoleum of Heydar Aliyev and the “Turkish Heroes Square” accompanied by Azerbaijani MP Ramil Hasan and the “representative” of the pseudo-state in Azerbaijan, Ufuk Turganer.
Speaking to journalists there, he recalled that his party and the New Azerbaijan party had signed a cooperation protocol as “two governing parties.”
They will discuss, he added, the relations between the two parties as well as cooperation in the fields of economy, education, and tourism between Turkey, Azerbaijan, and the pseudo-state. “I believe that our work in the Organisation of Turkic States will be better and more effective in the future, and we will promote our ties economically as well as in educational, touristic, and cultural levels,” he noted, thanking Aliyev for the invitation to Tatar for the summit in Shusha.
The newspaper “Kibris” today highlights the invitations from Azerbaijan as “high-level contacts” and presents a statement from the “president of the Azerbaijan-Cyprus friendship association,” Orhan Hasanoglu, that Tatar’s reception with an “official ceremony” in Azerbaijan and the current statements indicate that diplomatic relations between the “two countries” will further advance.
President Aliyev, he added, makes great efforts for the recognition of the pseudo-state and recalled that a few weeks ago, about 50 “citizens of the TRNC” – as referred to in the pseudo-state – went to Azerbaijan and entered the country with “TRNC passports” for an event of the “modern music association of the TRNC” and the “Azerbaijan friendship association.”
He expressed the view that this is very important, and the next step will be for the “citizens” of the pseudo-state to travel with their own “passports.”
Moreover, speaking to the same newspaper, the “advisor” to Tatar on international relations and diplomacy, Hussein Isiksal, described the inclusion of the pseudo-state in the Organization of Turkic States as an observer as a historic step and said that the Organisation is the tangible expression of the unity of the Turkic world.
The Organisation, he continued, is significantly strengthened geopolitically by the inclusion of the pseudo-state, which is the only island “state” within the organization and the southernmost Turkish “state,” as he expressed it.
He considered Tatar’s invitation to the Shusha summit in July as an important step, supporting that there is nothing more natural than this as they are “children of the same nation.”
“The president of the Cyprus Organisation of Turkic States,” Ali Akin Onder, said that the invitation to the Turkish Cypriot leader is a “positive step” and emphasized the fraternal ties between Azerbaijan and Turkey.
