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Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev spoke to Al Jazeera about the ongoing battles in the Nagorno Karabakh region between his forces and Armenian women. Parallel to international calls for a political solution, Armenia expressed its readiness for a ceasefire, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emphasized the need to “liberate” the region from Armenian occupation.
In his interview on Friday, the Azerbaijani president held Armenia responsible for the escalation in the region and the continuation of the conflict there, accusing it of seeking to preserve the areas “it occupied in the past.”
Aliyev said: “The first reason for the escalation is that Armenia does not want peace, because it wants to keep the territories it occupies permanently, and does not want the situation to change. Armenia had to show its goodwill to respect international decisions.” .
“In 1993, Armenia occupied this region and the Security Council issued 4 resolutions calling for the rapid and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian forces from the region. The Minsk Group was established to facilitate the implementation of these decisions,” he added.
“As for the other reason, it is a lack of determination on the part of the mediators and a lack of pressure on Armenia to start implementing the UN Security Council resolutions,” he said.
In a related context, the Azerbaijani president flatly denied Armenia’s accusations to Turkey of sending Syrian fighters to Azerbaijan and said that these accusations were fabricated.
In response to a question from Al-Jazeera in this regard, Aliyev compared these accusations to what was said about a Turkish fighter who shot down an Armenian fighter a few days ago.
For its part, the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Armenia is ready to begin negotiations for a ceasefire in Karabakh under the auspices of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry welcomed the call by the presidents of Russia, the United States and France for a cease-fire of the Karabakh trip.
Political solution
Regarding the diplomatic move to stop the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed on Friday in a phone call with Armenian Prime Minister Niko Pashinyan the need for an immediate cessation of hostilities in the region the resumption of political efforts in line with the data of the joint Russian-American-French communiqué.
The Kremlin said – in a statement – that the two sides expressed concern about the information that speaks of the participation of armed men from the Middle East in the ongoing battles in the region.
In the same context, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, held talks in Geneva with the US President’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien.
According to a spokesman for the Russian Security Council, the two sides stressed the need to start the political-diplomatic process in Karabakh as soon as possible, and that the Russian and American views are identical on the problem in the region.
In the same context, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with Armenian Prime Minister Nikole Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Friday and renewed the call for a ceasefire between the two countries.
The French presidency said that Macron proposed a new approach to restart the talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan within the framework of the Minsk Group.
The United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, also renewed his call to end the fighting in Nagorno Karabakh.
Guterres stressed that dialogue is the only way to a sustainable solution, and stressed that there is no military solution to the conflict in Karabakh.
Liberate Karabakh
For his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that “the fighting in Azerbaijan will continue until the liberation of the Karabakh region from Armenian occupation.”
In a speech during the inauguration of a medical city on Friday in Konya (south of the capital Ankara), Erdogan said that attempts to blockade Turkey are underway and will not achieve their goals.
He added that, looking at the places of crisis stretching from Syria to the Mediterranean and the Caucasus, attempts to blockade Turkey are developing, emphasizing that the latter is interested in its strength and unity to thwart all these attempts. .
The Turkish president indicated that Armenia attacked Azerbaijan again at a time when the issue of Nagorno Karabakh was not resolved, which was occupied by Armenia committing despicable massacres, he said.
Erdogan noted that after its recent attack, Armenia faced an unexpected result.
He noted that “sister Azerbaijan has started a major military operation to defend its soil and liberate Karabakh,” and stressed that “the Azerbaijani army that is successfully advancing on the front has managed to liberate many regions.”
He continued: “We are and will continue to be with all our capacities and capabilities on the side of Azerbaijan, brother and friend, and the struggle, God willing, will continue until the liberation of Karabakh.”
Sixth day fights
On the ground, battles continued on Friday for the sixth day in a row between Armenian and Azeri forces, with each side emphasizing that it had inflicted heavy losses on the second match.
And the Armenian Defense Ministry declared a general state of alert in the army, saying that its forces had successfully responded to the Azerbaijani army’s attacks and inflicted losses on soldiers and equipment.
The areas of “Martakert” and “Agadam” in the north, “Martoni” and “Fozuli” in the south witness the fiercest battles between the two armies.
On the other hand, the Al-Jazeera correspondent quoted Azeri military sources as saying that the army had taken control of the heights that dominate the Madagues region of Karabakh.
The Azeri army showed images that it said were weapons and military vehicles seized from the Armenian forces.
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