An Alliance Without Subordination: What the Hijab Dispute Reveals About Relations Between Baku and Ankara

An analytical article on relations between Azerbaijan and Türkiye and on the two models of statehood whose divergence, long concealed by the formula “one nation, two states,” was exposed by the dispute over the hijab in Azerbaijani schools. It argues that Azerbaijan’s secular nationalism, rooted in the First Azerbaijan Republic (1918-1920), underpins sovereignty and domestic stability in a country of Shiites and Sunnis, North Caucasian peoples, Orthodox Russians and Jews, and protects it from Iranian religious and political influence. Türkiye under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan joins Turkish nationalism with Islamic identity and answers to a conservative base that wants an Islamic agenda promoted beyond the country’s borders. The analysis connects this divergence to competing interpretations of the Karabakh victory, rival ideological models for the Turkic world and Central Asia, Azerbaijan’s strategic relationship with Israel, and tensions within Turkish domestic politics. Despite these structural differences, the two states share compelling strategic interests, and the current tension is likely to subside while its causes persist. The alliance can remain durable, the article concludes, only as a partnership without subordination, in which brotherhood is not used as an argument against sovereignty.