Turkey, beaten by
Italy, will have boisterous support in Azerbaijan but Gareth Bale says atmosphere will ‘spur us on’
“One nation, two states” is a popular saying across Azerbaijan and
Turkey that sums up the ties between the countries. Those four words offer a reminder to Wales that, as if the task were not tricky enough, when they face Turkey in Baku they may as well be playing before a partisan crowd in Istanbul. Never mind that this week the Turkey flag at the entrance of the Tofiq Bahramov Stadium, Wales’ training base, was subtly removed.
Turkey is Azerbaijan’s biggest ally and relationships run deep: culturally, historically and politically. Azerbaijan received
MILITARY muscle from Turkey in a brief but bitter war with Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region last year and on Tuesday the
Turkish president,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, visited Shusha, the city at the heart of that conflict, to sign a trading and security alliance.