AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): The confrontation between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev over the ban on female students and teachers wearing the hijab in Azerbaijan's schools and universities finally forced Erdogan to step back from the brink of escalating tension. This came at a time when the brotherly relations between the two countries appeared to be on the verge of collapse.
According to a report by Lebanon's Al-Akhbar newspaper, one sign of this retreat was the resignation of Oktay Saral, Erdogan's adviser, who had been at the forefront of the campaign criticizing Azerbaijan's decision. He stepped down on Sunday at the request of the Turkish president. This came as some media reports indicated that Aliyev had made Saral's dismissal a precondition for talks on repairing the damage done to relations between the two countries.
The adviser had earlier called on Azerbaijan to back down from its decision and asked which conscience or sense of justice would allow a female student who wears the hijab out of religious belief to be left behind the school door.
In response, Aliyev accused Turkey of interfering in Azerbaijan's internal affairs and asked Ankara not to meddle in matters that do not concern it.
The matter did not end there. In circles close to the Azerbaijani government, accusations were raised against Ankara that Turkey was seeking to engineer a military coup against Aliyev and harbored Ottoman ambitions for domination.
The Azerbaijani government also issued international arrest warrants for more than 30 Turkish figures, including Fatih Erbakan, the leader of the New Welfare Party, which also has representatives in the Turkish parliament. These individuals had condemned Azerbaijan's decision on the hijab.
Criticism in Turkey of Erdogan's retreat
However, Saral's dismissal did not go unanswered in Turkey. Erbakan accused Erdogan of bowing before Aliyev.
Others believed that the Turkish president had suffered two defeats in moral and value-related cases in less than a month. The first case was the theft of citizens' deposits in investment funds by senior officials of the ruling Justice and Development Party, and the second was the dispute over the hijab with Azerbaijan.
In this regard, Ali Babacan, the leader of the Democracy and Progress Party, estimated the cost of what he called the theft of the century at $150 billion.
It seems Erdogan did not want the hijab case to turn into a strategic defeat in his foreign policy and to jeopardize friendship with Baku.
Azerbaijan is Turkey's land gateway to Central Asia and the Turkic world and is one of the pillars of Ankara's influence in the Caucasus region against Russia and Iran.
Erdogan also does not want to easily hand Baku over to Tel Aviv, especially at the peak of tension between the Zionist regime and Turkey. In addition, Azerbaijan is important to Turkey in terms of energy imports, and the route for transferring Azerbaijan's gas and oil to global markets is also of strategic importance.
Erdogan backed down from his position to preserve relations with Baku
Thus, although Erdogan found himself in a difficult position regarding religious and moral values during yesterday's ceremony marking the 103rd anniversary of the proclamation of the Turkish Republic, he preferred to resolve the dispute with Azerbaijan as quickly as possible.
He had built part of his political rise on defending these very values, including the defense of the hijab, which during his rule was approved for use in all Turkish institutions, even military ones.
However, Erdogan tried to repair the differences before the regular summit of Turkic-speaking countries today. A summit that could pave the way for resolving the crisis between the two countries.
From this perspective, Saral's dismissal was like drinking a cup of poison for Erdogan. A move he immediately followed by detaining a number of Turkish figures whose entry into Azerbaijan Baku had banned.
Aliyev's absence from the Turkic-speaking countries summit; a sign of the crisis continuing?
But the surprise was that Aliyev would not attend the summit on which Erdogan had pinned his hopes for resolving the differences that had surfaced in relations over the past two years.
Azerbaijan's Report news agency announced last night that the country's president would not attend the summit due to a heavy workload and also plans related to sports events the following day, and that Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov would attend on his behalf.
This decision will not please Erdogan and may push relations between the two countries into an unknown path.
This comes as the Turkish president himself did not personally attend the regional ECO summit held more than two weeks ago and sent his Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to the meeting.
**************
End/ 345E
