President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday congratulated Azerbaijan on its 101st Republic Day.
"I would like to congratulate on the 101st anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Azerbaijan. I send my greetings to the friendly and brotherly people of Azerbaijan and to my brother [Azerbaijani President] Ilham Aliyev," Erdoğan said in a tweet.
Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalın also extended greetings to Azerbaijan on Twitter, wishing both countries "more beautiful, brighter and stronger days" in the future as "one nation, two states".
The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was founded on May 28, 1918 as the first secular democratic state in the Muslim East. Its founder was Mammad Amin Rasulzadeh, and the first state to officially recognize the republic was the Ottoman Empire. The republic proclaimed its independence from the Russian Empire in 1918 but only managed to operate for 23 months before being invaded by the Soviet Union. The modern Republic of Azerbaijan declared its independence on August 30, 1991, shortly before the USSR disintegrated. Since 1990, May 28 is celebrated as Republic Day and a national holiday.
