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Istanbul (AFP)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country was Baku’s main supporter in the conflict with Armenia, will visit Azerbaijan on December 9, the Turkish presidency announced on Thursday.
Erdogan’s two-day visit will be the first by a foreign head of state to Azerbaijan since the ceasefire that ended several weeks of fighting in early November and enshrined Baku’s achievements since Nagorno Karabakh.
The visit will coincide with a large military parade that Baku plans to organize on December 10.
To oversee compliance with the Moscow-sponsored ceasefire agreement that provides for the evacuation by Armenians from areas they had controlled for thirty years, Russia deployed a “peacekeeping” force in the region.
Turkey announced on Tuesday that it had signed an agreement with Russia on the establishment of a joint monitoring center whose mission is to monitor the ceasefire in Nagorno Karabakh.
Turkey, which sided with Baku in the conflict, praised Azerbaijan’s “great victory” over Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh after signing the agreement to end the fighting.
On Thursday, Azerbaijan announced that 2,783 of its soldiers had been killed in the fighting.
Before that, Baku did not announce its military losses and only the number of Azerbaijani civilian casualties was mentioned.
© 2020 AFP
