Erdoğan congratulates Azerbaijan's Aliyev on re-election win

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan congratulated his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, on Wednesday for securing a fifth consecutive term in elections.

President Erdoğan congratulated Aliyev on his victory in the presidential election and expressed his wish that Aliyev's re-election as president would be beneficial for the Azerbaijani people, Türkiye's Communications Directorate said in a statement on X.

Tallies showed that Aliyev won the election with 92 percent of the vote after nearly all electoral precincts declared results.

"The Azerbaijani people have elected Ilham Aliyev as the country's president," Central Election Commission chief Mazahir Panahov told a press conference.

Turnout was 67.7 percent, he added.

Singing patriotic songs, several thousand Aliyev supporters gathered on Wednesday evening in the streets of central Baku to celebrate his re-election.

Some demonstrators held signs that read "Karabakh's liberator" and "We are proud of you!"

The president and first lady Mehriban Aliyeva went to Karabakh on Wednesday to cast their ballots in the region's main city of Khankendi.

For the first time in Azerbaijan's post-Soviet history, 26 polling stations opened in Karabakh.

Last month, Aliyev called the Karabakh victory "an epochal event unparallelled in Azerbaijan's history."

"The election will mark the beginning of a new era," he said, with the country holding the presidential vote on all its territory for the first time.

Supporters have praised Aliyev for turning a country once thought of as a Soviet backwater into a flourishing energy supplier to Europe.

Aliyev, 62, was first elected president in 2003 after the death of his father, Heydar Aliyev, a former KGB...