Azerbaijani and Turkish leaders are planning a celebratory summit to commemorate Baku’s victory over Karabakh. During the summit, they intend to hold a groundbreaking ceremony for a new natural gas pipeline and open a modernized Azerbaijani military complex. Meanwhile, Armenia is preparing to welcome a new wave of refugees from the enclave.
Armenia prepared Monday to welcome a new flood of Nagorno-Karabakh refugees. At the same time, the leaders of Azerbaijan and ally Turkey were set to hold a celebratory summit marking Baku’s victory over the rebel enclave.
Several days after the fighting, the first refugees from the breakaway state arrived in Armenia on Sunday and a total of 2,906 have so far entered the country, the Armenian government said in a statement on Monday
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev intended to cement his victory by flying to his country’s western exclave of Nakhichevan for talks Monday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his most important regional ally.
Turkey supplied Baku with a fleet of combat drones that helped Azerbaijan claw back a chunk of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory in a six-week war three years ago.
The two leaders are scheduled to hold a groundbreaking ceremony for a new natural gas pipeline and open a modernized Azerbaijani military complex, a show of Turkish force contrasting sharply with Russia’s apparent withdrawal from the region.
In nationally televised comments, the Armenian leader said the security agreements between the two countries had proved “insufficient” to protect the country, suggesting that he would seek new alliances.
Armenia is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-dominated group comprising six post-Soviet states that had pledged to protect each other if attacked.
Miroslava Salazar, with AFP
