Global Courant
The Turkish president will visit Azerbaijan’s autonomous exclave of Nakhchivan in a show of solidarity with his ally.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrived to meet Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev as thousands of ethnic Armenians flee Nagorno-Karabakh after Baku defeated the breakaway region’s fighters in a military operation launched on September 19.
The visit to Azerbaijan’s autonomous exclave of Nakhchivan on Monday is aimed at discussing the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, according to the Turkish president’s office.
State media said Erdogan, who will hold a bilateral meeting and a joint press conference with Aliyev, will also attend a groundbreaking and opening ceremony in the region.
The Armenians of Karabakh, an area internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but previously outside its control, were forced into a ceasefire last week after a 24-hour military operation by the much larger Azerbaijani army.
The majority of Karabakh Armenians do not accept Azerbaijan’s promise to guarantee their rights as the region is integrated.
Valery Airapetyan, a resident of Nagorno-Karabakh who spoke to Al Jazeera, is one of them.
“We found a gallon of gas, ran and came here. Shall we go so that the young people are killed along the way? he said.
As of 5 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Monday, more than 2,900 people had entered Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian government said in a statement.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Sunday he expected around 120,000 citizens to leave the region for Armenia, fearing “the danger of ethnic cleansing”.
Armenia has called on the UN to set up a mission to monitor human rights and security in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Decades of struggle
Nagorno-Karabakh is located in a region that over the centuries has come under the control of Persians, Turks, Russians, Ottomans and Soviets.
After the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917, the country was claimed by both Azerbaijan and Armenia. It was designated as an autonomous region within Azerbaijan before the USSR collapsed.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the region’s Armenians overthrew Azerbaijani control in the First Karabakh War, leading to a conflict that killed tens of thousands of people in the following years.
Azerbaijan reclaimed swathes of territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh in a 2020 war in which Ankara backed Baku with weapons.
Erdogan last week expressed support for Azerbaijan’s latest military bid.
More than 200 people were killed and 400 injured in last week’s operation in Azerbaijan, which was rejected by Western countries, according to Yerevan.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has blamed Russia for Armenia’s failure. He is facing protests and calls for resignation in his country over the failure of Nagorno-Karabakhis.
