Efforts to draw Azerbaijan and Turkey closer on a religious basis could have the opposite effect, Azerbaijani politician and economist Natig Jafarli said.
In a Facebook post, Jafarli argued that religion should remain a personal matter and warned that turning it into a collective political doctrine would harm the state.
“Many people love Azerbaijan but do not know it or study it,” Jafarli wrote, saying recent disagreements had exposed limited understanding of Azerbaijan among some Turkish public figures.
National Identity and Secular Government
Jafarli said supporters of politicized religion in Turkey may mistakenly believe that a stronger religious role in Azerbaijani politics would bring the two countries closer. He argued that if the concept of a religious community displaced national identity in Azerbaijan, political influence would be more likely to come from Iran than Turkey.
He described the Azerbaijani-Turkish alliance as a rare case in which the two countries’ interests often align naturally without extensive coordination.
Azerbaijan’s role, he said, extends beyond providing a geographical connection between Turkey and Central Asia. It also serves as a cultural, economic and social bridge between Ankara and the Turkic republics east of the Caspian Sea.
Jafarli added that Central Asian governments also reject the use of religion as a political instrument. In countries with relatively weak political institutions, he said, secular government remains an important foundation of the republican system.
He called the friendship and alliance between Azerbaijan and Turkey the foundation of the wider family of Turkic states and said it should be strengthened through a better understanding of each country’s interests and distinctive features.
Source: Vesti Baku