Erdogan to visit Azerbaijan amid hijab conflict

(Istanbul = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kim Dong-ho = Anadolu News Agency reported on the 5th (local time) that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to visit Azerbaijan, where diplomatic tensions have recently heightened over the culture of wearing hijab, which covers women's hair.

President Erdogan met with reporters on the plane returning home after a state visit to Korea and said, "If nothing special happens, I plan to visit Azerbaijan on the 8th of this month," and revealed that he had a phone call with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev regarding this.

November 8 is Victory Day, established to coincide with the day when Azerbaijan recaptured Shusha, a strategic location, in the war with Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

When asked what he thought of the indication that there is a crisis in the relationship between the two countries, President Erdogan emphasized, "Relations with Azerbaijan go beyond simple diplomatic relations," and added, "God willing, there is no obstacle that the brotherhood of Türkiye and Azerbaijan cannot overcome."

President Erdogan's remarks are interpreted as a determination to resolve the growing conflict between the two countries, which has recently been met with criticism from neighboring Turkiye when the Azerbaijani authorities implemented a dress code that effectively prevents female students wearing hijabs from attending school.

Regulations approved by Azerbaijani authorities on the 9th banned clothing that goes against the “principle of secularism in education” in public schools. The controversy arose when schools banned female students wearing hijabs from entering classrooms, even though there was no phrase 'no hijab' in the regulations.

Students and parents protested, saying that wearing the hijab according to religion and studying at school are two different things.

In response, Oktay Saral, a senior adviser to President Turkiye, called for the rule to be rolled back, saying it was unacceptable to prevent the wearing of the hijab, and Azerbaijan's ruling party protested, telling it not to interfere in internal affairs.

Turkiye, which has linguistic and ethnic similarities with Azerbaijan, is Azerbaijan's closest ally, and the two countries call themselves 'one people, two countries'. In the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Armenia in 2020, Azerbaijan received important military support from Turkiye.