“The occupation of part of Azerbaijan’s territory, especially Karabakh, where Armenia is massacring people, has been going on for almost thirty years. Encouraged by the international community’s lack of interest in the massacres and invasions, Armenia continued to provoke itself as it launched new attacks on civilians. Azerbaijan then launched an operation to liberate its occupied historical territories and has now regained areas that Armenia seized banditically, “Erdogan said in an interview.
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According to Erdogan, Armenia was defeated: “Armenia has suffered a devastating defeat on the battlefield, so Yerevan is trying to assert the view that Turkey is involved in hostilities. Allegations against Ankara suggest that Armenia is desperate and cornered. Armenia is therefore trying to spread the conflict. “
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Shelling of Nagorno-Karabakh
Photo: Umit Bektas, Reuters
The Turkish president also criticized the international community: “The international community must finally understand reality and abandon the policy of a dual approach. I call on the international community to take steps to liberate the Azerbaijani areas occupied by Armenia. ”The last sentence clearly shows that Azerbaijani forces have failed to recapture the whole of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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The fighting continues
The situation on the battlefield is not entirely clear, as both sides exaggerate their successes. On Thursday, the Armenian Ministry of Defense announced that it had managed to shoot down two Azerbaijani drones and destroy four towed D-30 howitzers.
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A house destroyed by shelling in Stepanakert, Karabakh
Foto: David Ghahramanyan/nkr Infocente, Reuters
The fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh continued at night. According to Yerevan, the Stěpanakert administrative center was mainly shelled, where alarm sirens sounded all night, followed by deafening explosions of ammunition. According to local authorities, the bombs also landed in populated areas and unexploded rockets and craters could be seen in the city after the explosions.
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According to Baku, the Azerbaijani regions of Terte, Agdam, Agjabedi and Goranboj were also shelled. “There are dead and wounded,” said the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense. The Ministry of Defense of the unrecognized independent Nagorno-Karabakh announced that thirty Armenian soldiers had fallen. The clash, which began on September 27, has already claimed 300 to 400 lives, including about 50 civilians. According to AFP, neither party is willing to make a ceasefire, which will be discussed in Geneva on Thursday.
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The difficult question of Nagorno-Karabakh
Nagorno-Karabakh was part of the Azerbaijani SSR at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, although Armenians demanded its transfer to Yerevan, which Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev refused.
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From this point of view, Nagorno-Karabakh really belongs to Azerbaijan, which, however, gained territory in the war in 1918. Even before that, in 1915, Armenians fell victim to genocide.
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In the war from 1988 to 1994, Nagorno-Karabakh was ruled by the Armenians, where the locals declared an independent state, the Republic of Arcach, which is not internationally recognized.
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