Mon 05 October 2020:
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has said in an interview on Monday on TRT that Turkey must be involved in the solution process for the Nagorno-Karabakh region after a potential future ceasefire.
Both Turkey and Azerbaijan have accused Armenian forces of targeting civilians in recent tensions on the Azerbaijan-Armenia front line
“A peace process will surely be started. Clashes cannot go on forever, so the sooner the better,” Aliyev said on TRT Haber, the Turkish broadcaster.
Fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the occupied Karabakh region entered the ninth day. Hundreds of people have been killed in the fiercest clashes in the region for more than 25 years.
‘War crimes’
“Armenia directly targets civilians [in Azerbaijan], which is essentially a war crime,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu after meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in the capital Ankara on Monday.
Stoltenberg is expected to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later during the trip.
NATO is “deeply concerned” over the Upper Karabakh conflict, and called for the peaceful solution of the dispute, Stoltenberg said.
Turkey’s Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said that Armenia must withdraw from the Azerbaijani territories it occupied and stop cooperating with terrorist organisations.
“Armenia must withdraw from the [Azerbaijani] territories it occupied, end cooperation with terrorist organizations, and get rid of mercenaries and terrorists from the [Upper Karabakh] region,” Akar said in a virtual conference with Turkey’s high-rank military officials.
