EREVAN, Armenia – Russia’s most sensible diplomat said Tuesday that some 2,000 Middle Eastern fighters have joined the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, the worst outbreak of hostilities in the Armenia-Azerbaijan clash in more than a quarter of a century.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov comes when the parties to the conflict exchanged accusations of additional attacks in the region.
“In fact, we are involved in the internationalization of the Nagorno-Karabakh clash and the participation of Middle Eastern activists,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russian company Kommersant. “We have continually asked foreign actors to use their prospects to prevent the movement of militants, whose number in the shock zone is 2,000. “
Lavrov added that Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the factor in last week’s phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Nagorno-Karabakh is located in Azerbaijan, but has been under the control of Armenian-backed forces since the end of a war in 1994. The most recent outbreak of hostilities began on September 27 and left hundreds, if not thousands, dead, marking the worst escalation. since the end of the war.
Azerbaijan trusted the strength of its best friend Turkey, who trained the Azerbaijani army and provided him with attack drones and long-range rocket systems. Armenian officials accuse Turkey of being directly involved in the confrontation and sending mercenaries from Syria to fight throughout Azerbaijan.
Turkey has denied the deployment of fighters in the area, however, a Syrian war observer and Syrian-based opposition activists demonstrated that Turkey had sent heaps of Syrian opposition fighters to fight in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Despite repeated foreign attempts to end hostilities, intense fighting involving heavy artillery, rockets and drones took place. A truce negotiated by the United States broke without delay after it entered into force last week, as did two previous ceasefires negotiated through Russia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan The most recent commitment not to target damaged residential spaces hours after Friday’s adoption. The parties to the conflict have been continually charged with violations.
Artillery chimney hit the region’s capital, Stepanakert, on Tuesday night and the nagorno-Karabakh emergency ministry also said 3 rockets hit the strategic key to Shushi city.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev insisted that Azerbaijan has the right to return to territory through force after three decades of fruitless foreign mediation and said Armenia is engaged in fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh as a condition for a lasting truce.
Azerbaijani troops have reclaimed several spaces in and out of Nagorno-Karabakh and led their offensive to separatist territory from the south, seeking to break a link between separatist territory and Armenia.
Lavrov said Russia continued to push for an end to hostilities, noting that it was implementing a set of mandatory verification measures to achieve a lasting ceasefire, adding the imaginable deployment of foreign observers. under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
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Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Aida Sultanova in London contributed to this report.
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