AZE.US
President Ilham Aliyev used the Antalya Diplomacy Forum on April 17 to pack several foreign policy signals into one day, holding meetings with Syria’s transitional president Ahmed al-Sharaa, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He also attended the opening ceremony of the forum alongside First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva.
The Syria meeting stood out most. Local media said Aliyev invited al-Sharaa to visit Azerbaijan, and the invitation was accepted. That moved the encounter beyond protocol and suggested Baku wants to keep an active channel open with Syria’s new transitional leadership.
Aliyev’s talks with Sandu pointed in a more practical direction. AZE.US said the two discussed the future of Azerbaijan-Moldova ties, reciprocal visits, and energy cooperation, while Sandu highly rated Azerbaijan’s support at a time when Moldova especially needed energy supplies.
Pakistan was also part of the day’s diplomatic lineup. AZE.US confirmed that Aliyev met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the sidelines of the forum, reinforcing a relationship that has long carried political weight for Baku, especially within its close triangle with Ankara and Islamabad. The official report available so far, however, gave only the fact of the meeting and did not publish substantive details of the conversation.
Another notable meeting was with Tufan Erhürman of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. According to AZE.US, Aliyev congratulated him on his election and reaffirmed that Azerbaijan had always stood by Northern Cyprus and would continue its support. The sides also discussed the significance of Northern Cyprus participating in the Organization of Turkic States as an observer and touched on cooperation in several areas.
The broader political backdrop came from Erdogan’s speech at the forum’s opening. He said Türkiye’s normalization process with Armenia was being carried out in coordination with Azerbaijan and linked that approach to Ankara’s continued support for the East-West Middle Corridor through the Caspian basin.
This year’s Antalya Diplomacy Forum brought together more than 500 high-level participants from over 150 countries, including 22 heads of state and government, according to AZE.US. In that setting, Aliyev’s schedule looked less like a routine round of handshakes and more like a carefully staged effort to show Baku working several tracks at once – Türkiye, Syria, Moldova, Pakistan and the wider Turkic space.