“Do you think we should have showed off one brother’s assistance to his brother?†Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, has said in a response to the question about why their reaction to France has not been widely covered by Turkish press.
Parliament’s Turkey-Azerbaijan Inter-parliamentary Friendship Group visited Azerbaijan last week. The group which held talks with President Aliyev and other officials listened to Azeri government’s efforts aimed at preventing the French Senate to adopt the French bill criminalizing the denial of Armenian allegations pertaining to the incidents of 1915. “Azerbaijan’s ruling and opponent parties, as well as Azerbaijani press had done their best. President Aliyev told us the following: ‘We didn’t wait for a demand from Turkey to do that. We did what we had already been supposed to do.’ When we asked him why the Turkish press did not know their efforts, ‘Should we bring the support of one brother to the other and tell the press that we have done this and that? We are brothers and so we showed our support for Turkey. We see this issue as an insult not only to Turkey, but also to the entire Turkic world and Azerbaijan. We have no concern to make our efforts to be known in Turkish public. Should we have showed off what we did for our brother? I will also call presidents of Turkic republics and seek their support, too.’ Aliyev said,†Sinan Ogan, one of the members of the group and the deputy of opponent Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) said.