Azerbaijan has issued an international arrest warrant for a Turkish newspaper columnist, charging him with repeatedly ca...

Azerbaijan has issued an international arrest warrant for a Turkish newspaper columnist, charging him with repeatedly calling for a coup and the use of force to seize power in Baku. The suspect, Celal Ciftci of the Turkish outlet Sanliurfa Olay, was declared internationally wanted by Azerbaijan's prosecutor general on October 16, with an Azerbaijani court issuing the warrant in his absence. The arrest warrant came after Azerbaijan's prosecutor general formally accused Ciftci of promoting religious extremism alongside the coup calls, a combination of charges that carries serious weight in Azerbaijan's legal system. The row between the two countries started with a September 21 Azerbaijani decree on school uniforms, which bars additions deemed incompatible with secular education. Most observers read the decree as restricting Islamic headscarves in schools. Turkish presidential adviser Oktay Saral and lawmakers from Erdogan's AKP party publicly criticized the decree, which Baku's ruling New Azerbaijan Party immediately denounced as interference in its internal affairs. Things escalated further when Azerbaijani media outlet Qafqazinfo published a since-deleted report claiming Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had given coup-related instructions to young people at a meeting of the Youth Assistance Foundation during a recent visit to Baku. Turkey's embassy in Baku flatly denied the report, calling the allegations "deliberate lies" and "despicable slander" designed to poison Azerbaijani public opinion against Turkey. The embassy also denied that a letter attributed to Fidan in the report even existed. Azerbaijan's parliament working group on Turkey pushed back on the broader framing, stating that the famous "one nation, two states" formula describes two independent sovereign states and cannot be used as cover for interference in either country's domestic affairs. The dispute is a rare and significant public fracture between two countries that have been among each other's closest allies for decades, cooperating militarily, economically, and diplomatically across the South Caucasus. #Azerbaijan #Turkey #Caucasus