ANKARA / MOSCOW (Reuters) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday told Russian leader Vladimir Putin that Armenia must be assured of negotiations in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan and called for a peaceful resolution.
Internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but at least 1,000 people have died in six weeks of fighting in and around the mountain range, Nagorno-Karabakh, controlled by the population and ethnic Armenians. Erdogan had previously said that Turkey and Russia could work together to resolve the conflict.
In a statement, the president said Erdogan had told Putin in a phone call that Armenia should withdraw from the occupied Azeri lands and that the Armenian leadership should support sitting at the negotiating table.
In a separate statement, the Kremlin said Putin briefed Erdogan on his phone calls with the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, adding that “these exchanges focused on quickly ending hostilities and finding alternatives to political and diplomatic reconciliation.”
“Mutual readiness to cooperate to resolve the conflict peacefully was reaffirmed,” he says.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevl કેt Cavusoglu also called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to discuss the issue.
The conflict underscores the influence of Azerbaijan’s ally Turkey, which was dominated by Moscow in the former Soviet Union, which has a defense agreement with Armenia. It also threatens the safety of Azeri oil and gas pipelines.
Three ceasefires have failed to stop the bloody fighting in the South Caucasus for more than 25 years. The two sides accused each other of launching attacks on each other within hours of the agreement.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukku in Ankara and Gabriel Tetralt-Farber in Moscow; edited by Catherine Evans and Giles Elgood)
