Following his decision not to attend the OTS Summit, Aliyev announced that he was backing the UAE candidate, rather than Türkiye’s candidate, for the post of UN Secretary-General. Türkiye-Azerbaijan relations can be interpreted either as heading towards a crisis or as the beginning of a new chapter. The truth is that nobody wants a new big brother.
Before the impact of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s announcement that he would not attend the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) Summit in Ankara had even begun to fade, a report from Baku triggered a new rift in Türkiye-Azerbaijan relations.
For quite some time, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had been lobbying for Feridun Sinirlioğlu, Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), to succeed António Guterres as UN Secretary-General. Aliyev, however, threw his support behind Lana Nusseibeh of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), adding insult to injury, so to speak. We will return to this shortly, because other Muslim-majority countries and OTS members have also backed Nusseibeh. The issue, it seems, is seen as being about neither Sinirlioğlu nor Türkiye.
It may also be wrong to interpret Aliyev’s reaction as directed against Türkiye or as a sign that he wants to sever ties with Ankara.
It could instead be argued — though this remains open to debate — that Aliyev’s objection was directed primarily at Erdoğan’s Azerbaijan policy, and that he voiced it in particularly painful and exaggerated terms.
It could be argued that Oktay Saral’s message telling Aliyev to get his headscarf policy in order was the last straw for Baku in Türkiye-Azerbaijan relations.
The first visible crack in relations actually emerged last July.
Speaking at a meeting of AKP’s Rize provincial organization, Erdoğan took aim at Israel and said: “Just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we can do the same to them. There is nothing to stop us from doing so.”
Baku reacted. It is true that Türkiye provided significant support in the liberation of Karabakh in 2020 from the Armenian occupation that had been in place since 1993. Weapons acquired from Israel and Pakistan were also used in Azerbaijan’s victory in Karabakh. But Türkiye’s support for restructuring Azerbaijan’s armed forces had been in place since Azerbaijan regained its independence in 1991. Aliyev had invited Erdoğan, and the two had celebrated the victory together at the military parade. In fact, in 2024 Aliyev announced that the Turkish military model had been successfully integrated into the Azerbaijani armed forces.
But there were other problems.
Relations with Israel were also a problem, but not serious enough on its own to undermine Türkiye-Azerbaijan relations. Because Türkiye had closed its airspace to Israeli aircraft in response to Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal policy against Palestinians in Gaza, Israeli President Isaac Herzog was forced to turn back while travelling to Azerbaijan for the COP29 Summit in 2024. Host President Aliyev was deeply offended. When Herzog, who had announced that he would attend the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) summit in Baku on October 15, faced the possibility of being barred from entering Azerbaijani airspace once again, a workaround was found: he travelled aboard an Azerbaijan Airlines aircraft bound for Shusha.
Would things have reached this point if Erdoğan had attended the CICA summit himself, rather than sending Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, and spoken to Aliyev personally, before tensions had escalated so far? We cannot know. But let us say that there is no point crying over spilt milk.
Ankara was also displeased that Azerbaijan did not leave the UN General Assembly hall on September 24 while Netanyahu was speaking. Azerbaijan responded that it had stayed to listen even to Armenia’s address.
Israel, then, was not a reason serious enough to wreck Türkiye-Azerbaijan relations. But it seems that Aliyev, who gave his people a taste of victory after years of conflict, was uncomfortable with Erdoğan claiming ownership of Azerbaijan’s victory in Karabakh while railing against Israel.
The problem Aliyev has described in forceful terms as “meddling in our internal affairs” and “interfering with our way of life” is something else.
The vast majority of Azerbaijani society, like Türkiye’s, is Muslim. The Ja’fari branch of Shiism is widespread in Azerbaijan, while the Hanafi branch of Sunni Islam predominates in Türkiye. To go back in history, the 1514 Battle of Chaldiran, commonly referred to in history books as a Turkish-Iranian war, was in fact fought between two Turkish Muslim rulers: the Sunni Ottoman Sultan Selim I and the Shia Safavid Shah Ismail.
Amid regional political turmoil, the Azerbaijani leadership is seeking, on the one hand, to counter Iran’s attempts to exert influence in Azerbaijan through religion by emphasizing secularism. On the other hand, it makes no secret of its discomfort with certain religious communities from Türkiye, mostly associated with the Nurcu movement, seeking to spread Sunni Islam in Azerbaijani society. The common denominator among the 31 people banned from entering the country by Aliyev — including Fatih Erbakan, leader of the New Welfare Party and a political rival of Erdoğan — points to precisely this issue.
This, too, lies at the root of tensions that have been quietly building in Türkiye-Azerbaijan relations over the past few years.
Azerbaijan’s decision on October 2 to ban headscarves in primary and secondary schools was also a pre-emptive move against Iran. But the reactions from Türkiye took centre stage.
The slogan “Two states, one nation”, popularized by Süleyman Demirel and Heydar Aliyev, should mean that each state preserves its own independence and sovereignty. This point is particularly emphasized in MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli’s latest message on Türkiye-Azerbaijan relations.
Türkiye had, in fact, experienced this very dynamic during Ahmet Davutoğlu’s tenure as foreign minister and prime minister:
As Arab countries in the Middle East move towards more secular steps — or, to use the Azerbaijani Turkish term, “dünyəvilik” (worldliness) — rather than religiously defined secularism, they do not want Türkiye to move away from the system founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk a century ago on secular principles, nor do they want Ankara to assume a big-brother role in shaping their societies along those lines.
In his message, Bahçeli emphasized “Jadidism” and invoked İsmail Gaspıralı’s slogan “unity in language, thought and action”, notably without mentioning “unity of faith”. Erdoğan, for his part, has also referred to the matter, albeit without pressing it too hard.
In this context, Aliyev’s decision to back the UAE candidate Nusseibeh for the post of UN Secretary-General can be seen not as a move against Sinirlioğlu or Türkiye, but as an objection to Erdoğan’s foreign policy, which Baku appears to perceive as an attempt to play the big brother.
Before turning to Azerbaijan, let us look at the other Muslim-majority countries that have declared their support for the UAE’s Lana Nusseibeh. Starting with OTS members Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the list includes Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Morocco, Albania and the Maldives.
That Azerbaijan has made this decision at this particular moment, within the framework of “two states, one nation”, is especially painful. That is a separate matter.
It is also worth recalling the UAE candidate’s background.
Lana Zaki Nusseibeh is the daughter of a family of Palestinian origin.
The Nusseibeh family is one of two long-established Sunni families entrusted with the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. From the time Saladin captured Jerusalem until the family migrated to the Emirates in 1948, its members opened the church doors every morning for centuries.
Lana Nusseibeh previously served as the UAE’s Permanent Representative to the UN, just as Sinirlioğlu did before her. She is currently an assistant minister at the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responsible for political affairs. Azerbaijan, like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, has not chosen her in opposition to Sinirlioğlu or Türkiye. Rather, if the turn is to go to Asia and the Muslim world, their preference has been for a successful woman of Palestinian origin whose outlook is oriented towards “worldliness” and secularism.
There are those who say that nothing will ever be the same again.
Erdoğan is unlikely to forget Aliyev’s treatment of him, just as Aliyev is no inexperienced politician who would fail to calculate the consequences of his actions.
At this point, there are two possible paths.
Either the escalation continues, with retaliatory moves on both sides.
Or Türkiye-Azerbaijan relations are put on a healthier footing, one based on equality and mutual interests.
The ground and conditions are suitable for either outcome.
Both depend on the political will demonstrated by Erdoğan and Aliyev.
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