Nagorno-Karabakh: After conquest, Erdogan rushes to meet Aliyev Libya: “I have worked in many conflict areas, but I have never experienced anything like this before”

A few days after Azerbaijan’s conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Monday.

The Turkish presidential office said the meeting in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan would focus, among other things, on the latest “developments” in the region. Nagorno-Karabakh is inhabited by a majority of Armenians. Turkey is a close ally of Azerbaijan, which wants to reintegrate the area.

Following brief, violent attacks by the Azerbaijani army last week, defenders of the internationally unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh were forced to lay down their arms. Karabakh Armenians fear expulsion or revenge from authoritarian Azerbaijan after decades of conflict.

Russia welcomed the meeting between Erdogan and Aliyev. “We always hope that all meetings of the President of Azerbaijan, including those with the Turkish President, will serve to normalize life in Karabakh after what happened,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax news agency on Monday.

The close relations between Baku and Ankara are well known, but Moscow also maintains close ties with both capitals, Peskov pointed out. Russia maintains a military contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh that was supposed to monitor a ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020.

In the afternoon, Erdogan and Aliyev also wanted to participate in the laying of the foundation stone for a new natural gas pipeline between Turkey and the neighboring Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan. Azerbaijan is also increasing pressure on areas of southeastern Armenia to create a corridor to Nakhchivan, which is largely surrounded by Armenia and Iran.

(yam/sda/dpa)