Turkish Overseas Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has known as on Armenia to “chorus from new provocations” a number of days after Yerevan and Baku traded accusations over an escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh that left at the very least three folks lifeless.
Talking at a gathering of Turkish diplomats in Ankara on August 8, Cavusoglu reiterated his nation’s imaginative and prescient of peace within the South Caucasus area.
“For the reason that finish of the warfare, Turkey continues to make efforts to make sure peace within the area,” Cavusoglu mentioned, alluding to the lethal six-week warfare between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas that ended with a Moscow-brokered cease-fire in November 2020.
Backed by Turkey, an archfoe of Armenia, Azerbaijan gained management of swathes of territory that had been managed by ethnic Armenians because the former Soviet republics fought a warfare over Nagorno-Karabakh within the Nineteen Nineties.
“Now we’re speaking not about Azerbaijan’s occupied territories, displaced folks, refugees, and a battle that may begin once more at any second, however about regional peace and cooperation,” Cavusoglu mentioned. “We once more name on Armenia to chorus from taking part in new provocations [against Azerbaijan in Karabakh].”
On August 3, ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh mentioned that two Armenian troopers have been killed and practically two dozen others wounded in what they described as an assault by Azerbaijani forces in opposition to their navy positions alongside the Lachin hall performed with the usage of drones, mortars, and grenade launchers.
The Lachin hall connects Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh and is at the moment managed by Russian peacekeepers underneath the phrases of the 2020 cease-fire.
Baku, for its half, mentioned the operation was in retaliation for the killing of 1 Azerbaijani soldier by ethnic Armenian forces within the space on August 1.
Azerbaijan additionally claimed to have captured some strategic heights within the mountainous area overlooking the Lachin hall.
Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian chief Arayik Harutiunian ordered a “partial mobilization” of military reservists within the wake of the incidents. Nonetheless, the scenario didn’t additional escalate amid reported agreements that ethnic Armenians could be leaving a number of villages alongside the Lachin hall which might be to be handed over to Azerbaijan as a part of the cease-fire settlement.
Regardless of what seems to be a deescalation of battle in line with calls by Russia, the USA, and the European Union, the scenario in and round Nagorno-Karabakh stays comparatively tense as Armenians and Azerbaijanis proceed to accuse one another of standard cease-fire violations.
Armenia mentioned one in every of its troopers was wounded alongside the border with Azerbaijan on August 6, a declare denied by Azerbaijan however confirmed by the Russian Protection Ministry in its newest information bulletin on the Nagorno-Karabakh peacekeeping operation.
Turkey, which is Azerbaijan’s high navy and political ally and has no diplomatic relations with Armenia, has been engaged in a normalization course of with Yerevan since late final yr.
Ankara, nonetheless, has made it clear that establishing diplomatic relations and opening borders with Armenia is determined by Yerevan’s acceptance of Baku’s key calls for.
Commenting on the prospect of normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations in July, Cavusoglu mentioned that Yerevan ought to particularly negotiate a peace accord sought by Baku and open a land hall to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a battle over Azerbaijan’s breakaway area of Nagorno-Karabakh for years.
Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been populated primarily by ethnic Armenians, declared independence from Azerbaijan amid a 1988-94 warfare that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and displaced lots of of hundreds of individuals.
Internationally mediated negotiations with the involvement of the OSCE’s so-called Minsk Group — co-chaired by France, Russia, and the USA — did not lead to a decision earlier than warfare broke out once more in September 2020.
Within the aftermath of the warfare that killed greater than 6,500 folks, Armenia agreed handy over three districts ringing Nagorno-Karabakh that had been underneath Armenian management because the Nineteen Nineties, together with the Lachin hall, and Russia deployed some 2,000 peacekeepers to supervise the truce.
