Second Reuters Turkey would be sending Syrian fighters to support Azerbaijan in the clashes in the Nagorno-Karabakh territory disputed with Armenia: the clashes are the hardest since 2016 and have already caused dozens of dead and hundreds of injured. The Armenian ambassador to Russia said on Monday that Turkey had sent about 4,000 fighters from northern Syria to Azerbaijan, but Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev denied it.
According to Armenia, Turkey is providing aid to Azerbaijan, a country with a Muslim majority of which it is an ally, also sending military experts, drones and warplanes to the country. Turkey did not comment on the news, although senior Turkish government officials, including President Tayyip Erdogan, expressed their support for Azerbaijan. The source of Reuters allegedly two fighters belonging to rebel groups supported by Turkey in the areas of northern Syria under Turkish control and allegedly fighting in Azerbaijan coordinated by Turkey itself.
The two fighters, for security reasons, wished to remain anonymous, but told a Reuters that they went to fight in Azerbaijan for money, finding themselves in economic difficulty: they said that the commanders of their Syrian brigade said that by going to fight in Azerbaijan they could have earned about 1,500 dollars (about 1,300 euros), the equivalent of 3 years salary in Syria.
On Sunday the separatist government of Nagorno-Karabakh, supported by Armenia, he had recalled the reservists and announced martial law. Nagorno-Karabakh, which proclaimed itself independent in the 1990s, is an inland and mountainous area of Azerbaijan, which is however mostly inhabited by Armenians and is therefore supported by Armenia. The population of Nagorno-Karabakh is overwhelmingly Armenian and Christian, but until the dissolution of the Soviet Union Nagorno-Karabakh was in the orbit of the Muslim Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic.
The Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh voted for independence in December 1991, with a referendum boycotted by the Azerbaijani inhabitants of the region: since then Nagorno-Karabakh has defined itself as an independent state (but it is not recognized internationally).
–
