Azerbaijan’s ruling party on Tuesday accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) of using a dispute over Azerbaijan’s school headscarf ban to fuel division in Turkey and the Muslim world and exert political pressure on Baku.
The New Azerbaijan Party (YAP), led by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, issued the statement after Oktay Saral, a chief adviser to Erdoğan, and AKP lawmakers criticized restrictions that have led to girls wearing Islamic headscarves being turned away from classes.
“Using sensitive issues such as headscarves as a means of political manipulation and division serves neither the unity of the Turkish people nor the solidarity of the Muslim world,” the party said.
“We call on the AKP government to refrain from this harmful policy,” it added.
The party accused Turkish media outlets and social media accounts, some associated with the AKP, of spreading falsehoods about Azerbaijan and described Saral’s and the lawmakers’ remarks as populist and irresponsible.
It warned that no Muslim country had the right to dictate its will to other Muslim peoples, interfere in their affairs or consider itself superior. Claims to promote Muslim unity should be demonstrated through cooperation among equals rather than attempts at domination, it argued, invoking Azerbaijan’s opposition to imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism.
The dispute centers on school dress rules that Azerbaijan’s Cabinet of Ministers amended on September 21. The rules prohibit students at state schools from wearing clothing that disrupts the prescribed uniform or conflicts with the principle of secular education.
The text does not name the hijab, the Islamic headscarf, but some schools have enforced it as a ban. Decisions on compliance are left to school councils, and the regulation does not expressly authorize schools to exclude pupils from lessons.
Girls wearing headscarves have been turned away from schools, prompting protests by parents and criticism in Turkey. Footage from a school in Sumgait, north of Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku, was among the cases documented.
A separate dress code adopted on October 6 also requires teachers’ clothing to comply with secular education. Teachers in Baku and Sumgait described being told to remove their headscarves or resign.
Erdoğan adviser Saral condemned the exclusion of girls wearing headscarves as a violation of their right to education and called on Azerbaijan to reverse the practice in a post on X.
Leyla Şahin Usta, a deputy leader of the AKP’s parliamentary group, and AKP lawmaker Muhammet Müfit Aydın also urged Azerbaijan to reverse the restrictions after images of girls being refused entry circulated.
YAP defended the rules in Muslim-majority Azerbaijan on Tuesday, arguing that its constitution guarantees religious freedom while defining the country as secular. It also cited Turkey’s secular constitution and accused Turkish politicians of turning Azerbaijan’s education policy into a tool of political manipulation.
The dispute touches an issue that helped Erdoğan build support among voters in Turkey. Bans enforced in the name of secularism intensified after a military-backed campaign against political Islam in 1997. Headscarf restrictions once excluded women from universities and public employment, and AKP governments dismantled those restrictions between 2010 and 2017. Erdoğan has repeatedly cited their removal as a reason to support his party.
Erdoğan condemned school headscarf bans as an attack on women’s rights in his September 22 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, a day after Azerbaijan changed its rules, but did not identify any country.
AKP spokesman Ömer Çelik maintained on October 7 that differences over domestic and foreign policy could be resolved through talks between Turkey and Azerbaijan. He denied that Turkish groups targeting Azerbaijan had any connection to the AKP or the government.
The two countries describe their relationship as one nation, two states, reflecting their related Turkic languages and cultural ties. They formalized their alliance in the 2021 Shusha Declaration, which provides for cooperation on defense and security.
YAP challenged the use of that slogan to justify interference, insisting that it referred to two independent countries and gave neither the right to impose its political or ideological preferences on the other.
The statement also defended Azerbaijan’s relations with Israel, accusing critics in Turkey of misrepresenting those ties to make political accusations against Azerbaijan. The countries have energy and defense links, which Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry described as part of a strategic partnership in January.
Those ties became another source of criticism in Turkey last month after an Azerbaijani diplomat stayed in the UN General Assembly hall during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech while Turkish representatives joined a walkout protesting Israel’s assault on Gaza.
YAP argued that relations with Israel did not contradict Azerbaijan’s support for Palestinian rights. It cited aid to Palestinians and support for a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
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