Starting Monday, Azerbaijan will hold military exercises with its close ally Turkey, the first since Baku regained control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region last month, prompting most of the Armenians in the region to flee.
Announcement
This comes as the Armenian, Azerbaijani, Russian, Turkish and Iranian foreign ministers meet in Tehran in a meeting that is supposed to help calm relations between the two Caucasian countries.
The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense said that the maneuvers are being organized in Baku and in the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhchivan bordering Armenia and Iran, as well as in the “liberated territories” whose location has not been determined and could mean Karabakh or neighboring Azerbaijani regions.
She added that these exercises are taking place with the participation of up to three thousand soldiers from the two countries, dozens of armored and artillery vehicles, and about twenty aircraft, and that their goal is to “ensure good coordination in combat” and “improve leadership” as well as “professionalism of the forces.”
The ministry indicated that the soldiers will train in the use of artillery, aviation, building floating bridges, and parachuting into enemy territory.
After announcing these exercises, France stated that it was “extremely vigilant” in the face of potential threats to Armenia’s territorial integrity.
Meeting in Tehran
There are feelings of hostility between Azerbaijan and Armenia that escalated with the lightning operation carried out by Azerbaijan that ended with the control of Karabakh at the end of September and the expulsion of Armenian separatists from it. More than 100,000 people out of the 120,000 residents of the enclave fled to Armenia.
Before that, Azerbaijan and Armenia fought two wars to control this mountainous enclave, one in the 1990s after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the other in the fall of 2020 and ended with Baku’s victory.
Yerevan fears that its richer and better-armed neighbor, supported by Turkey, will seek to strengthen its influence by linking the Nakhchivan enclave to its territory after attacking southern Armenia.
The two countries are also holding talks on various issues without reaching an agreement yet, and in this context, the foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey and Iran are meeting Monday in Tehran.
The Iranian official IRNA news agency reported that these ministers intend to discuss “peace talks” between Yerevan and Baku.
She said that this meeting aims to “solve the problems of the region, without the interference of countries outside the region and Western countries.”
Turkey, which supports Azerbaijan, and Russia, which is considered an ally of Armenia, play a major role in the region. However, the recent attack on Nagorno-Karabakh led to a reshuffling of the cards. Yerevan accused Moscow of abandoning it due to its failure to stop Azerbaijani forces, which Russia denied.
Armenia seems ready to turn more towards the West, in search of protection.
In this context, the country ratified its membership in the International Criminal Court in mid-October, hoping that this would serve as an additional shield to protect it from Azerbaijan’s potential ambitions.
Moscow considered this step extremely negative, especially since it came after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in the spring against President Vladimir Putin on charges of “deporting” Ukrainian children to Russia, which Moscow denies.
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2023-10-23 20:33:33
