BAKU, Azerbaijan
Turkey reaffirms its support to Azerbaijan in the struggle with Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region and aims to find a peaceful resolution to the 20-year conflict, Turkey’s Parliament Speaker said at meeting with Azerbaijani President on Friday.
Cemil Cicek, Turkey’s Parliament Speaker spoke at a Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic Speaking Countries (TURKPA) Five Plenary Session, hosted by the National Assembly of Azerbaijan in Baku.
"In TURKPA, we never refrain from supporting the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and in support of concerted action against the Armenian occupation," said Cicek, adding that Turkey continues to struggle to find a peaceful solution to solve the dispute in Azerbaijan.
Efforts to reach a peaceful resolution to the conflict, which lasted 20 years, have so far failed and the two countries remain without diplomatic relations. Azerbaijan and Armenia, two former Soviet republics, fought a war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that countries that have common roots, need to form close ties with each other, and ultimately the major aim of all Turkic republics is the unity of the Turkic world.
Aliyev said, "There is no other country, except Turkey and Azerbaijan, struggling for the unity of the Turkic world," and added "We are one nation, two states."
Cicek spoke on the plight of the Crimean Tatars, "We will not recognize the de facto annexation attempt of Crimea. We will give importance to the security of Crimean Tatars."
Russia annexed Crimea on 21 March. Many Tatars felt insecure after the annexation, which stirred memories of their mass deportation in 1944 under Soviet leader Josef Stalin. The deportation in which around 250,000 Crimean Tatars - including women and children - were taken from their homes and forced to migrate to areas thousands of kilometers away from Crimea facing hunger and thirst on their way.
Aliyev also received committees from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan separately.
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