Erdogan in Baku calls on Armenia to push out PM and join regional cooperation group

Erdogan in Baku calls on Armenia to push out PM and join regional cooperation group
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (l) greets Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan who came to Baku to review a Victory Day parade with Aliyev. / Azerbaijani Presidency.
By bne IntelIiNews December 10, 2020

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on December 10 called for a change of leadership in Armenia while in Baku where he reviewed a Victory Day military parade marking Armenia’s defeat by Azerbaijan in a 44-day war over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

At the same time, he held out the possibility that Armenia—an impoverished country of less than three million people that suffered a bruising defeat in the conflict after Azerbaijan deployed Turkish and Israeli armed drones against its poorly equipped forces—could join a regional cooperation group alongside Azerbaijan. The group in Erdogan’s eyes would also involve Turkey, Russia, Georgia and Iran. In the more than three decades that the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute has remained unresolved, Armenia has suffered economically from its closed borders with both Azerbaijan and its close ally Turkey.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is under substantial pressure to resign over his handling of the conflict, which in early November ended after he agreed to a Russian-brokered ceasefire that left Azerbaijan with major territorial gains.

Erdogan weighed in on Pashinian’s troubles, saying: “We wish for the Armenian people to rid themselves of the burden of leaders who console them with the lies of the past and trap them into poverty.”

The Turkish leader said he had discussed the regional cooperation initiative with Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev.

Never ratified

Armenia and Turkey signed a peace accord in 2009 to restore diplomatic ties and open their shared border after a century of hostility stemming from the World War One mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman forces, described as a genocide by Yerevan and many other nations to Ankara’s continuing anger. The deal was never ratified and ties have remained strained.

During the recent conflict, Armenia accused Nato member Turkey of deploying hundreds of military advisers to the battlefield where, according to Armenian officials, they directed the offensive. Yerevan even went so far as to accuse Turkey of essentially taking over Azerbaijan’s foreign policy and having the final say on when the Azerbaijanis should bring their attacks to an end. Ankara refuted the accusations.

Around 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops are monitoring the ceasefire, while Turkey has been given a joint role in a monitoring centre on Azerbaijani soil that is to use observation drones to help ensure there are no breaches of the truce.

Erdogan, who reviewed the parade in Baku with Aliyev, said there was also now a need to hold ethnic Armenian forces accountable for what he said were their war crimes and destruction of villages, cities and mosques. Armenian forces deny being guilty of any such crimes and destruction. They have responded that it is Azerbaijani forces and foreign mercenaries that have committed large-scale cultural destruction and atrocities. Baku denies that.

‘Cannon fodder’

On December 10, the BBC put out a report headlined “The Syrian mercenaries used as ‘cannon fodder’ in Nagorno-Karabakh.” It told how “Turkey and Azerbaijan deny that Syrian mercenaries were used in the recent offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh but four Syrians have told the BBC that after enlisting for sentry duties in Azerbaijan, they were unexpectedly thrown into battle on the front line.”

At the parade in Baku, helicopters bearing the flags of Turkey and Azerbaijan flew over the nearby Caspian Sea, while almost 3,000 Turkish troops marched across Baku’s main square, and Azerbaijani tanks and soldiers filed past the two presidents, Reuters reported.

Aliyev made a speech in which he referred to hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis who lived in the early 1990s in Armenia being expelled.

"After 30 years of longing, I congratulate the soldiers of the Azerbaijani army who reunited Karabakh with the motherland, and I kiss the hands of the mothers who sent them to the front with prayers," Erdogan also said during his address.

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