Turkey has always backed Azerbaijan in the Karabakh issue, and it always will, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated at a news conference in Baku Thursday when summing up the outcomes of his meeting with President I. Aliyev. "Turkey is for settling the conflict through a dialogue but it is linked to freeing the occupied territories," Erdogan mentioned. In his turn, Aliyev said that the development of the relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey are crucial not only to the two countries but they also have an overall impact on the region. Large regional energy projects, in which Turkey and Azerbaijan take part, "promote enhancement of the role of the two countries in the regional relations system," the Azeri President said. Following their talks, Aliyev and Erdogan signed a number of agreements on political, economic and cultural cooperation, as well as a range of intergovernmental agreements, the Yerkir newspaper reported.