Ömer Murat*
When President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told the UN General Assembly in September that school headscarf bans in some countries are an assault on women’s basic rights, he did not name Azerbaijan. He did not need to. Azerbaijan had adopted school dress rules that some schools have enforced as a headscarf ban. Just over a week later, at the October 2 convention of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev warned that any interference in his country’s internal politics and social norms would be met with a fierce response. He did not name Turkey either.
This exchange has reignited questions about a relationship that has long been celebrated as “one nation, two states.” The headscarf ban is the immediate trigger for the dispute, rather than its underlying cause. The deeper drivers are the personal ties between the two leaders, their shared business interests and their competing regional ambitions.
Aliyev’s speech went further than a warning. He dismissed claims that Azerbaijan owes its success to foreign patronage, saying that it received no outside help during its refugee crisis and paid market rates, even inflated prices, for every weapon down to the last bullet. It seems that the target was Erdoğan’s tendency to present the victory in Karabakh as a triumph of Turkish foreign policy. In July 2024 Erdoğan angered Baku when, in a warning to Israel, he cited Turkey’s past interventions in Karabakh and Libya as a precedent for what Ankara could do next. At the time, an editorial in Azerbaijan’s state newspaper insisted that the victory belonged to the Azerbaijani army and that the country had paid for its own equipment.
The dispute is not about denying Turkey’s crucial political and military support. It is about who owns the victory, a sensitive question for two leaders who both prize projecting strength at home and abroad.
Armenia is another source of friction. Azerbaijan has consistently opposed the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border without its approval. Aliyev views the closed border as a means of putting pressure on Yerevan and has little incentive to support opening it before Armenia accepts a final settlement on Baku’s terms. Erdoğan, meanwhile, holds a card of his own. The prospect of Ankara opening the border without Baku’s consent gives him potential leverage in negotiations over commercial deals and arms purchases. With reports that the Turkish-Armenian thaw is advancing and the border could open soon, Armenia may be one of the reasons why Aliyev wants to demonstrate that he will not be taken for granted.
Israel is another. Baku views Israel as an important defense partner and, in its view, a channel of influence in Washington. By contrast, Ankara has taken an increasingly confrontational public line toward Israel. Although Erdoğan and his officials have not mounted a sustained campaign against Baku’s ties with Israel, critical coverage of Azerbaijan in Turkey, particularly on social media in circles perceived as being close to the government, has alarmed the Azerbaijani leadership. Baku may suspect that such criticism could not gain traction in Turkey’s tightly controlled media environment without at least tacit approval. Azerbaijan’s largely government-controlled media has now begun to return fire: In recent days, websites run by these outlets have published harsh criticism aimed specifically at Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Baku denies that its ties with Israel have harmed relations with Iran and rejects allegations that it has allowed Israel to use its territory or airspace to attack Iran. Tehran’s conduct lends some support to this claim. Unlike several Gulf Arab states, Azerbaijan did not face a sustained Iranian campaign of attacks during the latest war. A drone attack on Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan’s exclave bordering Iran, injured four civilians and damaged an airport building in March. Baku blamed Iran, but Tehran denied responsibility. By August, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was publicly crediting Baku for providing humanitarian aid, helping Russian aid shipments reach Iran and keeping logistical corridors open. Aliyev’s government sees itself as balancing between Israel and Iran and has no wish to sacrifice the former to satisfy Ankara or provoke the latter unnecessarily. Underlying this is a broader question about the nature of the alliance: Is Azerbaijan expected to follow Ankara’s political lead, or can the partnership coexist with Baku pursuing its own relationships and priorities? For Aliyev, the answer is clear.
Commercial ties give these tensions their weight. Since Turkey’s shift to a presidential system, power has become concentrated in the hands of Erdoğan, and the relationship with Azerbaijan has come to depend increasingly on the personal connections between the two leaders along with its institutional links. Investigative reporting suggests that business networks tie their ruling circles together. Azerbaijan’s state oil company, SOCAR, bought five vessels from the BMZ Group, an İstanbul firm linked to Erdoğan’s family, through Maltese shell companies in early 2017. The Black Sea, an investigative news outlet, reported the deal later that year as part of the Malta Files investigation. The deal, potentially worth up to $100 million, was not publicly announced. The Malta Files investigation also examined the financing of the Agdash, a $25 million tanker owned by companies with links to the Erdoğan family. The Palmali Group, owned by Azerbaijani businessman Mübariz Mansimov, agreed to charter the vessel and repay its bank loan, while the Erdoğan-linked owners retained ownership of the ship and bore little of the financing risk.
Since Azerbaijan’s recapture of territory in and around Karabakh from Armenian forces in the 2020 war and its takeover of the rest of the region in a 2023 offensive, a lucrative reconstruction market has opened up. In October 2022 Eurasianet, an independent news outlet covering the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project documented partnerships between individuals close to both leaders. One such partnership was Dost Agropark, a planned $100 million agricultural complex in Zangilan, a district that Azerbaijan retook in 2020. Its partners included Abdulkadir Karagöz of Dost Ziraat, who is married to Erdoğan’s niece, and Pasha Investments, which is part of Pasha Holding, owned by the family of Aliyev’s wife and first vice president, Mehriban Aliyeva. According to Eurasianet, Azerbaijan had also awarded mining rights to Cengiz Holding subsidiaries, a railway project worth more than $180 million to Kalyon Holding, and the “Victory Road” highway to Shusha to Kolin Construction and its Azerbaijani partner, Azvirt. These three firms are among a group of Turkish contractors that government critics call “the gang of five” because of their ties to the government.
These arrangements cut both ways. They give the leaders’ circles a shared stake in containing the quarrel, but they also give Baku leverage, since the contracts and licenses held by Erdoğan-linked firms are Azerbaijan’s to grant and withdraw. However, Ankara has levers of its own, notably Azerbaijan’s purchases of drones from Baykar, the defense company co-owned by Erdoğan’s son-in-law Selçuk Bayraktar and his brother Haluk. This helps to explain how Aliyev can push back in public while Ankara has reason to respond with restraint.
Aliyev also has Western audiences in mind. Energy-rich Azerbaijan looks to Western governments and its energy exports to Europe as an additional source of strategic support, and Erdoğan’s damaged image in Western capitals is a liability. While Baku’s own human rights record is criticized, Aliyev has an incentive to demonstrate that he can openly disagree with Erdoğan while maintaining the alliance and showing that Azerbaijan is not merely an extension of Turkish foreign policy. The timing may also be significant. With Erdoğan under domestic economic and political pressure, Aliyev may calculate that his counterpart is less able to impose political costs on Baku or to rally Turkish public opinion against Azerbaijan.
Nevertheless, a fundamental break is unlikely. Azerbaijan regards the alliance as essential to its security and independence. Turkey is a vital route for its energy exports to European markets and a major defense partner, as well as being a deterrent against potential pressure from Russia and Iran. Similarly, for Turkey, Azerbaijan is a gateway to the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and is central to Ankara’s ambition to expand its influence across the Turkic world without relying on routes through Russia or Iran. These shared interests will limit how far either leader is willing to take the confrontation.
Aliyev appears to have made his point. He has demonstrated the limits of Erdoğan’s influence and made his boundaries clear, enabling him to accept any conciliatory gesture from Ankara without seeming to back down. Ankara has already taken steps to ease tensions. After meeting with Aliyev in Baku on October 15, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan emphasized the strategic nature of the relationship and said differences should be discussed between the two governments without damaging their partnership. Mindful of the strong sympathy for Azerbaijan among Turks, Erdoğan has reason to pursue a swift reduction in tensions since a prolonged confrontation would alienate an important domestic constituency and undermine Turkey’s regional ambitions.
The slogan “one nation, two states” encapsulates the depth of the historical and cultural bonds between Turkey and Azerbaijan. However, this does not mean that their leaders share the same ambitions. As both leaders seek to preserve their authority in an increasingly uncertain regional environment, this distinction is likely to become more, not less, important.
* Ömer Murat is a political analyst and a former Turkish diplomat who currently lives in Germany.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Turkish Minute.
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