Turkish interior minister meets Azerbaijani president

By Muhammed Boztepe

BAKU

Good relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan make a great contribution to the region, said the Turkish interior minister on Friday.

On the last day of a two-day official visit to the capital Baku, Suleyman Soylu met with Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s president.

In the section of the meeting open to reporters, Soylu expressed solidarity with Azerbaijan on territorial issues, saying: "The Upper Karabakh issue first and foremost, your sorrow is our sorrow."

Aliyev told Soylu about continuing projects between Turkey and Azerbaijan, stressing that the two countries are friends.

Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan in 1991 with military support from neighboring Armenia, and a peace process has yet to be implemented.

Three UN Security Council resolutions and two UN General Assembly resolutions refer to Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe refers to the region as being occupied by Armenian forces.

During a meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ramil Usubov later on, Soylu told reporters that Turkey held 265,000 irregular migrants in 2018 and it was "a large number".

Soylu also thanked Azerbaijan for their "concrete" support to the Turkish government during 2016's defeated coup in Turkey plotted by the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO).

He added that Azerbaijan shows its perspective on the issue by the steps it takes every day.

Usubov, for his part, said they have seen the true face of the FETO members after the coup attempt.

"We do not want any FETO members in Azerbaijan," he added.

FETO and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016 in Turkey, which left 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

Ankara accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.