Erdoğan says false allegations were spread against Türkiye during 44-day war

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said that false accusations were made against Türkiye during the 44-day war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, accusing some groups of echoing narratives hostile to Ankara.

Speaking at the presentation of the Vision Concept of the Turkic World at the ruling Justice and Development Party’s congress centre in Ankara, Erdoğan said the past two centuries had been marked by difficulties not only for the Turkish people but for the wider Turkic world, Caliber.Az reports per local media.

He said deliberate efforts had been made to divide Turkic peoples, noting that in the 1940s, even mentioning the existence of Turkic communities outside Türkiye had been banned.

Erdoğan also recalled the execution by Soviet authorities of a group of Azerbaijanis who had sought refuge in Türkiye. He said the authorities at the time were aware of the fate awaiting the Azerbaijanis after they crossed the Boraltan Bridge, but decided to hand them over, a decision he said had cast a shadow over Türkiye’s leadership. He also quoted the Azerbaijani poet Rustam Behrudi in reference to the Turkic world.

The Turkish president accused certain opposition groups of misunderstanding developments within the Turkic world.

“We witnessed this flawed approach again during the 44-day Patriotic War,” Erdoğan said. “Some circles, using the rhetoric of Ankara’s adversaries, accused Türkiye of supporting Azerbaijan. Claims were circulated about arms deliveries from Türkiye to Azerbaijan and the transfer of jihadists.”

He said that during what he described as Azerbaijan’s struggle to liberate Karabakh, the same mistake was repeated as during the Boraltan Bridge tragedy.

Erdoğan concluded by stressing the importance of unity across the Turkic world, describing the agreements reached in Nakhchivan as a “turning point in the history of the Turkic world”.

By Aghakazim Guliyev