Turkey to support Azerbaijan on field, table: FM
ANKARA
Turkey always stands with brotherly Azerbaijan, extending its support both on the field and at the negotiation table, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Sept. 29.
“We stand by Azerbaijan on the field and at the table. Now we want to solve this problem completely,” he told reporters during his visit to Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Ankara Khazar Ibrahim.
“Let’s solve this problem so that peace and stability come to the Caucasus, to this region. Let the occupied territories of Azerbaijan be liberated and freed. Our Azerbaijani brothers, who had to immigrate with a population of one million, can return home,” he said.
Referring to international organizations’ decisions on the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, Çavuşoğlu criticized the parties, including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), for taking no concrete steps towards solving the problem.
Çavuşoğlu stated that Turkey “rightly and correctly” supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine and Georgia and criticized a biased stance of the international community when it comes to Azerbaijan’s occupied lands.
“But when it comes to Azerbaijan, they equate Azerbaijan with occupant Armenia. It is a wrong and unfair approach,” he said.
Turkey had made efforts for the solution of this problem in a peaceful way through a political process since the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power, but these efforts did not help, the minister added.
Stating that the solution to the Armenia-Azerbaijan problem is “simple,” Çavuşoğlu said: “There is only one solution, Armenia has to withdraw from the territories it has occupied. If this doesn’t happen, this problem cannot be resolved.”
Çavuşoğlu noted that he discussed the issue with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on the phone, with the recent developments in the Mediterranean also being on the agenda.
Border clashes broke out early Sept. 27 when Armenian forces targeted Azerbaijani civilian settlements and military positions, leading to casualties. Azerbaijan’s parliament has declared a state of war in some of its cities and regions following Armenia’s border violations and attacks in the occupied region. Azerbaijan also declared partial military mobilization on the second day of the clashes.
The OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by France, Russia and the U.S., was formed in 1992 to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, but to no avail. A cease-fire, however, was agreed upon in 1994.
Turkey, Germany discuss Azerbaijan-Armenia row, East Med
Turkey's foreign minister on Sept. 29 discussed with his German counterpart the latest developments on the Azerbaijan-Armenia row and the Eastern Mediterranean.
According to the Foreign Ministry, Çavuşoğlu and Heiko Mass spoke over the phone.
The phone call came just days after clashes broke out on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border after Yerevan launched attacks causing civilian casualties.
Heavy losses claimed as fighting for Karabakh rages
Azerbaijani and Armenian forces claimed to have inflicted heavy losses as fighting raged for a third day over the occupied region of Karabakh.
Urgent calls from world leaders for a halt to the fierce clashes that erupted have gone unheeded by the ex-Soviet rivals, who have been locked for decades in a territorial dispute over Karabakh.
The U.N. Security Council was scheduled to meet for emergency talks on the military escalation over the ethnic Armenian exclave, where intense fighting in recent days has caused nearly 100 confirmed deaths.
Both sides said fighting was continuing despite international pleas for a ceasefire.
Armenian defense officials said separatists in Karabakh had repelled Azerbaijani attacks along the frontline and that “the enemy suffered serious losses in manpower.”
Defense officials in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku in turn dismissed claims by separatist fighters that the Armenian-backed troops had regained control of territory in Karabakh lost in the fighting.
They said “fierce fighting” had persisted and that their military had repelled an Armenian counterattack, destroying “an Armenian motorized column and an artillery unit” and, later, an entire motorized infantry regiment.
Azerbaijani forces “continued an offensive on the city of Fizuli, destroying four enemy tanks, an armored vehicle and killing 10 troops,” officials in Baku said.
“The enemy... asked for help to evacuate corpses and wounded troops” from the battlefield, it said.