ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated Tuesday his nation is able to open a consulate in Shusha, a metropolis that Azerbaijan took from Armenian forces in a conflict in 2020.

Erdogan made the remark throughout a go to to Azerbaijan at the beginning of his third time period in workplace following presidential elections final month.

“We are ready to open our consulate whenever you wish,” Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Erdogan as telling Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and different officers at the beginning of bilateral talks.

“If we can open a consulate in Shusha, this would be a message to the world and especially to Armenia,” he stated.

Shusha, a middle of Azeri tradition for hundreds of years, got here beneath Armenian management in 1992 in preventing over the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh area. Its retaking by Azerbaijan’s forces in 2020 was of symbolic and strategic significance as a result of it sits excessive above the area’s close by capital, Stepanakert.

Turkey actively supported Azerbaijan within the final battle over Nagorno-Karabakh, wherein Azerbaijan regained management of a lot of the area and Armenian-held surrounding territories. More than 6,000 individuals had been killed in six weeks of preventing.

Turkey and Azerbaijan have shut ethnic and cultural bonds. It is conventional for newly elected Turkish leaders to go to Azerbaijan following a visit to the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state within the island nation’s north. Erdogan was in northern Cyprus on Monday.

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