Erdogan To Meet Azerbaijan President As Thousands Flee Karabakh

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is to meet his ally, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev, on Monday, as thousands of ethnic Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan defeated the breakaway region’s fighters last week.

Erdogan will pay a one-day visit to Azerbaijan’s autonomous Nakhchivan exclave , a strip of Azeri territory nestled among Armenia, Iran and Turkey to discuss with Aliyev the situation in the Karabakh region, the Turkish President’s office said.

The Armenians of Karabakh, a territory internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but previously beyond its control, were forced into a ceasefire last week after a 24-hour military operation by the much-larger Azerbaijani military.

On Sunday, the Nagorno-Karabakh leadership said the region’s 120,000 Armenians did not want to live as part of Azerbaijan for fear of persecution and ethnic cleansing and started fleeing the area.

As of 5 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Monday, more than 2,900 people had crossed into Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian Government said in a statement.

REUTERS