Turkey, Russia to jointly monitor Karabakh peace deal

By Burak Bir

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's president on Wednesday announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on a joint Turkish-Russian center to monitor the Karabakh peace deal, which has ended weeks of armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

"Turkey will join the peacekeeping forces in the [Karabakh] region to monitor the implementation of the deal with Russia," Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a parliamentary group meeting of his party in the capital Ankara.

The MoU on the center, which will be established on Azerbaijani territories that were liberated from Armenia's occupation, was signed this morning, Erdogan added.

He went on to say that with this deal 28 years of occupation on Azerbaijani lands and Karabakh officially comes to an end.

Referring to an article of Tuesday's Russia-brokered peace deal, he said: "A road will be constructed to connect Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan Autonomous Region."

The Turkish president also congratulated Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and the Azerbaijani people over the liberation of territories under Armenia's occupation.

Relations between the ex-Soviet republics have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Upper Karabakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory recognized as part of Azerbaijan.

Fresh clashes erupted on Sept. 27, and the Armenian army continued its attacks on civilians and Azerbaijani forces, even violating humanitarian cease-fire agreements, for 44 days.

Baku liberated several cities and nearly 300 of its settlements and villages from Armenian occupation during this time.

On Nov. 10, the two countries signed a Russia-brokered agreement to end fighting, and work towards a comprehensive solution.

Turkey has welcomed the truce, which is a result of Baku's military successes and has given it an upper hand over Yerevan to resolve the three-decade-long dispute.