Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on Monday travelled to Azerbaijan ahead of this week’s Organisation of Turkic States (OTS) summit in Qabala.

He arrived at Qabala airport on Monday morning and was welcomed by Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Elnur Mammadov.

The summit is, according to Turkish newspaper Milliyet, expected to be attended by the heads of state of all five OTS members – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan – as well as from observers Hungary, Turkmenistan and northern Cyprus.

Prior to the summit, there will be a meeting of foreign ministers, with the north’s ‘foreign minister’ Tahsin Ertugruloglu having travelled to Azerbaijan alongside Tatar to attend it.

The most recent OTS summit was held in Budapest in May, and while Tatar did not receive an invite, a joint declaration signed by the summit’s attendees stated that they “welcome the valuable contributions of Hungary, Turkmenistan, and [the] Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in their capacity as observers, as an inseparable part of the Turkic world, to the network of the OTS”.

The declaration also made reference to the Cyprus problem, with it written that the six heads of government “emphasise the need to reach a negotiated, mutually acceptable, and viable settlement of the Cyprus issue based on the existing realities on the island”.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during his address at the summit that the Turkic world would be “incomplete” without northern Cyprus, and stressed “the importance” of “increasing solidarity with the Turkish Cypriot people, who are an integral part of the Turkic world”.

Earlier this year, OTS members Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, as well as observer Turkmenistan and non-Turkic Tajikistan, signed a joint declaration with the EU declaring that all five countries “reaffirmed our strong commitment” to United Nations security council resolutions 541 and 550 – effectively ruling out ever recognising the north as an independent country.

The visit to Azerbaijan is likely Ersin Tatar’s last overseas trip before the Turkish Cypriot election on October 19.