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Erdogan, Aliyev cement military and business ties during Karabakh 'victory lap'

Erdogan announced that Turkey would be opening a consulate in the disputed territory and that the two countries would co-produce military drones.

The national flags of Azerbaijan (L) and Turkey, and portraits of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (R) hang side-by-side on the mayoral building in the Kecioren district of Ankara on October 21, 2020.
The national flags of Azerbaijan (L) and Turkey, and portraits of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (R), hang side by side on the mayoral building in the Kecioren district of Ankara, Turkey, Oct. 21, 2020. — Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited June 15 a key town in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, which was recaptured by Azerbaijani forces with Turkey’s help in a short but decisive war last fall that saw much of the disputed enclave return to Azerbaijani control.

The fall of Shusha — or Shushi as it is called in Armenian — was a defining moment in the conflict that has seen the alliance between Turkey and its ethnic Azerbaijani cousins grow even stronger, but also led to the deployment of Russian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh for the first time in the wake of a Russian-brokered cease-fire that ended the war.

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