Oktay Saral, who announced his resignation from his position as Chief Adviser to the President, has made further statements.
Speaking to Saygı Öztürk of the newspaper Sözcü, Saral said:
“Azerbaijan is my ancestral homeland. Azerbaijanis are my brothers. I will never, not even for a moment, deny this. I say it everywhere, and I will continue to say it. However, I do not believe that anything I said was intended to offend Azerbaijanis or the State of Azerbaijan. I simply expressed my opinion as a human being.”
“There is no reason to apologize”
Saral continued:
“My feelings are what keep me going. Therefore, I will not compromise on those feelings. Otherwise, I have not the slightest problem with Aliyev, Azerbaijan, or the Azerbaijani people. As I have said, they are our brothers. But there is simply nothing in what I wrote that calls for an apology.”
What had happened?
In a statement posted on social media, Oktay Saral had criticized the headscarf ban in Azerbaijan. In his post, Saral wrote:
“Preventing female students who wear headscarf in Azerbaijan from exercising their right to education is unacceptable. Such an attitude must never be allowed in this day and age.”
According to Middle East Eye, three officials and a source familiar with the matter claimed that Baku had responded by asking Ankara to remove Saral from his position. Saral subsequently announced that he had submitted his resignation as Chief Adviser to the President.
The Azerbaijani media also devoted considerable coverage to Saral's resignation.
The pro-government APA news agency, in an English-language report published on October 25, interpreted Saral's departure in the context of a disagreement between the two countries. The article, titled “Turkish president sacks chief adviser,” stated that Erdoğan had dismissed Saral in an effort to resolve the dispute that had arisen over the headscarf ban in Azerbaijani schools.
Azerbaijan-based Globalinfo also reported Saral's departure on October 25, under the headline “Oktay Saral, who threatened Azerbaijan, resigns.”
The article described Saral's remarks as “threatening” and claimed that they had provoked a backlash among the Azerbaijani public.
