Erdogan’s June 15 visit came a day after he met with U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels.
Upon his arrival in Baku, Erdogan traveled to the decimated town of Fuzuli to the southeast of Nagorno-Karabakh — the first town that Azerbaijani forces recaptured last autumn from ethnic Armenian forces who’d controlled it since the early 1990s.
Erdogan was met in Fuzuli by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his wife. They then traveled into Azerbaijani-controlled territory within Nagorno-Karabakh to visit the strategic city of Susa, which is known in Armenian as Shushi.
Azerbaijan’s seizure of the mountain fortress city in early November was a key moment in the war. It gave Baku a tactical advantage over the Armenian forces and led to a Russian-brokered cease-fire that brought an end to the fighting.
