President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday congratulated his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev for reclaiming the city of Lachin, and two villages to Baku.

Erdoğan expressed his appreciation for Aliyev's efforts for "a just and sustainable solution aimed at stability and peace in the South Caucasus" over the phone, Türkiye's Communications Directorate said in a statement.

The Turkish leader reiterated Ankara's support for "brotherly Azerbaijan in every situation" and said he wished the normalization processes between Türkiye-Armenia and Azerbaijan-Armenia to progress with both supporting each other.

Erdoğan and Aliyev also discussed Türkiye and Azerbaijan relations and regional developments during the phone conversation.

Azerbaijan has reclaimed control of the strategic city on the edge of Nagorno-Karabakh, the leader of Azerbaijan said Friday.

Aliyev said Azerbaijani forces have moved into the city of Lachin and two nearby villages. “I congratulate Lachin residents and the entire people of Azerbaijan,” he tweeted.

"Today, on Aug. 26, we – the Azerbaijanis – have returned to the city of Lachin," Aliyev said on Twitter.

"Azerbaijan's Army is now stationed in the city of Lachin. The villages of Zabukh and Sus were taken under control," he added.

Aliyev also congratulated all the residents of Lachin and the people of Azerbaijan on this occasion.

"Long live Lachin! Long live Azerbaijan!" the president said.

A video on social media showed that Azerbaijan's flag had been raised on a building in the city center of Lachin.

Accompanied by a group of soldiers, Maj. Gen. Kanan Seyidov, the commander of the army corps, said that the Azerbaijani army has taken full control of the city of Lachin, as well as Zabukh and Sus villages, in line with the directives of the president.

Lachin sits on a road that has served as the main link between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan has reclaimed control of the city and the “Lachin corridor” after building an alternate route in line with a Russia-mediated truce that ended a 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Russian peacekeepers and the Armenian population have left the areas along the route known as the Lachin Corridor, where Lachin, Zabuh, and Sus are located. The area was temporarily put under Russian control in line with the tripartite declaration signed by Moscow, Baku and Yerevan on Nov. 10, 2020, following 44 days of the second Karabakh War between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

As part of the declaration, Azerbaijan built a 32-kilometer (20-mile) road passing around Lachin for the Armenian population in Karabakh to use on their way to and from Armenia.

Russian peacekeepers providing security on the route of the old Lachin Corridor were required to move the checkpoints to the new road.

Lachin and its villages were occupied by the Armenian army in 1992, and then Armenians brought from Syria and Lebanon were settled there in the following years.

Throughout the process, Azerbaijan has declared that it sees this as a war crime and a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a decadesold conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

During a six-week war in 2020 that killed more than 6,600 people, Azerbaijan reclaimed large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas that had been controlled for decades by the Armenia-backed separatists.

The cease-fire in 2020 was mediated by Russia, which deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers.