Turkey's Erdogan praises ties with 'sister' nation Azerbaijan in visit to Baku

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday highlighted his nation's ties with Azerbaijan in a post-election visit to one of his firmest allies.

Ankara's supplies of combat drones to Baku helped to secure Azerbaijan's victory in its 2020 war with Armenia for control of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

"Turkey and Azerbaijan are two sister nations," Erdogan told a news conference alongside Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

"We have walked together up to this point as two states and one nation. From here on out, we will continue on our way resolutely."

Referring to the war, Aliyev said decades of talks had "failed to bring about any results, but our force did".

He added that Azerbaijan and Turkey "will increase their force in the world and in the region".

Six weeks of fighting in late 2020 ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire that saw Armenia cede swathes of territories it had controlled for decades.

In the wake of the war, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been negotiating a peace agreement under the mediation of the European Union and United States.

On 3 June, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attended Erdogan's inauguration in Ankara, the latest sign of a thaw between the two arch-foes whose relations are strained by World War I-era mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

Yerevan insists the atrocities amounted to genocide, a label which Turkey has rejected.

Erdogan arrived in Azerbaijan from northern Cyprus, his first port of call after winning a runoff two weeks ago that saw his two-decade rule extended until 2028.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, ethnic Armenian separatists in Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan. The ensuing conflict claimed some 30,000 lives.