Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev was in the driver's seat of Türkiye's first indigenous electric vehicle Togg as he drove President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and First Ladies Emine Erdoğan and Mehriban Aliyeva to the seventh edition of Teknofest, the world's largest aviation, space and technology festival in Istanbul.
President Erdoğan introduced Türkiye's first space traveler Alper Gezeravcı who will stay at the International Space Station for 14 days, and his backup Tuna Cihangir Atasever. Erdoğan said Gezeravcı's space travel was planned for the last quarter of 2023.
Gezeravcı is an accomplished pilot at the Turkish Air Forces Command while Atasever is an engineer working on space launch systems at the Turkish defense giant, Roketsan.
"Our space traveler will conduct 13 different experiments prepared by esteemed university and research institutions of our country," Erdoğan noted.
Erdoğan stated that this year's technology fest would be held in Ankara as well after it concludes in Istanbul.
"This year, we reached applications of 333,000 teams, 1 million competitors from 81 provinces and 96 countries," Erdoğan said.
Erdoğan emphasized the importance of the role that youth was going to play in the future of Türkiye. "I see here tomorrow's space travelers, inventors, pilots, engineers, physicists," he said.
Erdoğan thanked President Aliyev, First Lady Aliyeva and Libya's Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah for attending Teknofest.
President Aliyev stated his attendance to Teknofest – which was held in Azerbaijan's capital Baku last year – showed that Türkiye and Azerbaijan were together everywhere.
"Türkiye is the guarantor of peace, stability, safety in our region," President Aliyev said. "Kızılelma in the air, Altay and Togg here, Anadolu at sea... This is Türkiye today."
The leaders also took part via video call in the ceremony for the ground breaking of Haydar Aliyev Primary School in Kahramanmaraş which is set to be completed within a year, as Erdoğan thanked Azerbaijan for their efforts after the devastating Feb. 6 earthquakes that ravaged Kahramanmaraş and 10 other cities in the southeastern region of Türkiye.
Erdoğan said that President Aliyev has promised to construct 1,000 homes alongside schools, mosques and dormitories in Kahramanmaraş.