Bahceli urges Ankara and Baku to guard mutual trust before Turkic summit

Devlet Bahceli, leader of Türkiye's Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the main ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the governing People's Alliance, said preserving trust between Türkiye and Azerbaijan is essential for the shared future of the Turkic world, days before leaders of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) gather in Ankara.

In a written statement issued after a meeting of the MHP Central Executive Board, reported by Azerbaijan's Report.az on Oct. 24, Bahceli said relations between the two countries rise above temporary disagreements. "The key is to demonstrate the will to resolve such matters through direct dialogue and mutual understanding," he said.

A message aimed at the summit

Bahceli tied his remarks to next week's OTS leaders' meeting in the Turkish capital. "Next week's summit of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) in Ankara will be an important manifestation," he said, adding: "It is clear that the Turkic world must find its strength in mutual trust and solidarity."

He said the future of the Turkic world rests on sovereignty, mutual respect, equal partnership, trust and brotherhood, and that ties among Turkic nations stand on deep historical foundations. According to Report.az, Erdogan telephoned Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and invited him to the Ankara summit in person.

The statement followed a similar intervention earlier this month. On Oct. 14, the Turkish daily Istiklal reported Bahceli as saying that discord must not be sown between the two countries and that each Turkic republic is an independent and sovereign state. He described Türkiye and Azerbaijan as two strong states of the same "geography of the heart," stretching from the Aegean to the Caspian, and called for closer Turkic cooperation in defense, technology, education, science and culture under the OTS 2040 vision document.

Context: a strained month between allies

Türkiye is set to take over the OTS rotating chairmanship from Azerbaijan at the Ankara meeting, scheduled for the last week of October, and Aliyev and Erdogan are expected to meet there, Istiklal reported.

Bahceli's language comes after weeks of friction between the two governments' political camps. Eurasian Post has reported on the dispute over Azerbaijan's school headscarf rules, which drew a protest in Istanbul, and on how Aliyev's party rebuked Erdogan's AKP as the row strained ties. Bahceli did not refer to the headscarf issue by name in the statement as reported by Report.az, speaking instead of disagreements to be settled through direct talks.

What it means

Bahceli's repeated emphasis on sovereignty and direct dialogue reads as an effort by the senior partner in Erdogan's governing alliance to contain a quarrel that had spilled into party politics before Ankara hosts its Turkic partners. For Baku, the stress on each republic's sovereignty answers its objection to outside comment on domestic policy; for Ankara, a smooth handover of the OTS chair matters more than the dispute that preceded it. Whether the reset holds will be visible in Ankara, where an Erdogan-Aliyev meeting would be the clearest sign that the alliance underpinning the Middle Corridor and the OTS agenda is back on track.