ANKARA 

A Turkish foundation on Sunday honored Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev with the May 19 Turkish World Resurrection Award for leading his country to victory in Karabakh.

“The resurrection movement of the Turkish world, initiated by Gazi Mustafa Kemal Ataturk from the Anatolian plateaus on May 19, 1919, continues in the Central Asian steppes and Caucasus valleys,” Yahya Akengin, head of the Turkish World Authors and Artists Foundation (TURKSAV), said in a statement.

About Baku's success against Yerevan over the territory occupied by the latter nearly three decades ago, he said it was the success of the entire Turkish world against imperialist mindset.

The award will be presented to Aliyev in person after the coronavirus emergency subsides, Akengin added.

May 19, 1919 is a milestone in Turkish history, the day when Ataturk, the country’s founder, launched the War of Independence from the Black Sea city of Samsun, which transformed the nation into modern Turkey four years later.

He declared May 19 as Youth and Sports Day, a national holiday that sees young people stage sporting and cultural activities with official ceremonies organized across the nation.