Azerbaijan and Turkey are facing a public dispute over school headscarf restrictions, with Azerbaijani officials accusing Turkish political figures of interference after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s adviser and lawmakers from his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) criticized the rules.
Amid these developments, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will represent Erdoğan at Thursday’s summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), a regional security forum, in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday.
Fidan is expected to give a speech and meet with other participants, with calls for pressure on Israel over Gaza among his planned messages, the Hürriyet Daily News reported, citing Turkish Foreign Ministry sources.
Erdoğan ally Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), urged respect for Azerbaijan’s sovereignty on Wednesday, warning against sowing “seeds of discord” that could damage ties between the Turkic countries.
Bahçeli’s statement concerned an Organization of Turkic States (OTS) summit planned in Ankara for the last week of October. The group brings together Turkey, Azerbaijan and Central Asian countries. He expected a meeting between Erdoğan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev there to reaffirm their partnership, while calling for respect for each member’s independence and domestic law. He did not mention headscarves.
Oktay Saral, a chief adviser to Erdoğan, criticized the restrictions on Monday, arguing that girls should not be denied an education because they wear headscarves. “We expect Azerbaijan to reverse this mistake as soon as possible,” he wrote.
The New Azerbaijan Party (YAP), led by Aliyev, described the Turkish officials’ remarks as “populist and irresponsible” on Tuesday and argued that the countries’ “one nation, two states” relationship gave neither side the right to interfere in the other’s affairs.
The party went further, saying no state in the Muslim world had the right to dictate terms to other Muslim peoples or consider itself superior to them. It warned against attempts at domination and noted that Turkey’s constitution also defines the country as secular. YAP called on the AKP government to abandon what it described as a harmful policy of using Azerbaijan’s domestic issues for political purposes.
The statement also accused some Turkish media outlets and social media accounts, including those close to the AKP government, of spreading false and biased information about Azerbaijan. It rejected criticism of Baku’s relations with Israel, saying those ties did not undermine Azerbaijan’s support for Palestinian rights or its humanitarian assistance to Palestinians.
Azerbaijan’s Media and Broadcasting Council also accused activists, politicians and officials based abroad of participating in an information campaign against the country. In a statement posted on X, the council pointed to similar spelling errors, repeated comments and edited photos and videos as evidence of coordinated activity, citing more than 400 posts under an Azerbaijani-language hashtag.
The council specifically accused accounts operating from Turkey and Iran of intensifying attacks through Telegram, X and TikTok and encouraging people to disrupt public order. Its allegations did not establish that either country’s government directed the activity.
On Wednesday the council also accused Iran’s Sahar broadcaster of presenting footage from an event in Diyarbakır, southeastern Turkey, as a demonstration in Azerbaijan supporting people affected by the headscarf restrictions.
AKP parliamentary group deputy chair Leyla Şahin Usta and lawmaker Muhammet Müfit Aydın also criticized the restrictions. Mahmut Arıkan, leader of the opposition Felicity Party (SP), sent an open letter to Aliyev comparing the restrictions with those enforced in Turkey after a military-backed campaign against political Islam in 1997, when women wearing headscarves were excluded from universities and public employment.
Azerbaijan’s parliamentary working group responsible for relations with Turkey joined the spat on Tuesday, expressing concern over accusations by Saral and AKP lawmakers and defending Azerbaijan’s right to determine its domestic and foreign policies.
The group argued that the education rules applied to all citizens and targeted no religion. It also accused the AKP of failing to prevent insults against Aliyev and questioned Turkey’s tolerance of calls for protests outside Azerbaijani diplomatic missions.
Demonstrators gathered outside Azerbaijan’s embassy in Ankara and consulate in İstanbul on Tuesday evening. Organizer Köklü Değişim, an Islamist group, condemned Aliyev’s restrictions and relations with Israel and accused the AKP government of failing to speak out. The rallies followed an October 3 protest by the Freedom of Thought and Education Rights Association (Özgür-Der) outside the consulate.
Turkey’s government had not publicly criticized the Azerbaijani rules when President Erdoğa condemned school headscarf bans in a speech to the UN General Assembly on September 22. Erdoğan did not name Azerbaijan, and Turkish officials subsequently told Middle East Eye that his remarks were aimed at restrictions in France and Austria rather than at Baku.
AKP spokesman Ömer Çelik sought to play down reports of a rift on October 7, arguing that differences could be resolved through talks. He denied that groups in Turkey targeting Azerbaijan had any connection to the government or the AKP.
The dispute centers on changes to Azerbaijan’s school uniform rules adopted on September 21. The amendments prohibit clothing that disrupts the prescribed uniform or is considered inconsistent with the secular character of general education, but they do not explicitly mention the hijab, the Islamic headscarf. The rules leave questions about compliance to school councils and do not expressly authorize schools to exclude pupils from lessons.
Reports from Azerbaijan say, however, that schools have refused entry to students wearing headscarves. Teachers have also reported being told to remove their hijabs or risk losing their jobs. The government introduced a separate set of dress requirements for teachers on October 6.
English teacher Gulshan Aliyeva told Al Jazeera this week that she and her daughter were barred from their school due to their headscarves.
Videos circulating online have shown girls crying after reportedly being turned away from schools. Other reports described students boycotting classes in protest against the restrictions.
The measures have also prompted demonstrations and arrests. Azerbaijan’s interior ministry announced on Monday that 37 people had been detained for allegedly disrupting the public order during incidents linked to enforcement of the uniform rules, and a criminal investigation was opened.
Users reported interruptions to Instagram, TikTok and Facebook on Monday as videos and criticism of the school rules circulated. Reports of internet blackouts have not been confirmed by monitoring organizations.
The 313 Team hacker group, described in Azerbaijani media as pro-Iranian, claimed responsibility on Telegram for an overnight attack on government websites.
Azerbaijan’s State Service for Special Communication and Information Security announced that attacks beginning around 10 p.m. on October 13 targeted more than 100 government domains and disrupted several agencies’ websites. It attributed the attacks to a foreign hacker group without identifying its nationality.
The service maintained that technical measures had limited the disruption and ensured the websites’ continued operation. The group’s claim of responsibility has not been independently verified.
Azerbaijani officials have defended the rules, arguing that they do not amount to an explicit ban on the hijab. Lawmaker Ceyhun Mammadov said the regulations contained no specific prohibition on headscarves and argued that schools should maintain a neutral environment.
Allahshukur Pashazade, chairman of the Caucasus Muslims Board, also denied that Azerbaijan had banned the hijab and accused critics of exploiting religious feelings to turn people against the state. He argued that schools were separate from religion while suggesting that consultation before the rules were adopted would have been preferable.
The dispute has unfolded alongside a broader disagreement over Azerbaijan’s relations with Israel. During Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the UN General Assembly on September 24, Azerbaijan’s representative remained in the chamber while Turkey joined a walkout protesting Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Turkey and Azerbaijan have long described their relationship as “one nation, two states,” reflecting their related languages and cultural ties. Their alliance was formalized in the 2021 Shusha Declaration, which provides for cooperation on defense and security, and they maintain military, energy and transportation links.
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