Azerbaijan holds joint drills with Türkiye after Karabakh retake

BAKU – Agence France-Presse

Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry has said it begun joint drills with Türkiye near the border with Armenia, weeks after Baku recaptured Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenian separatists.

The ministry said "up to 3,000" troops would take part in the tactical drills held in capital Baku, the Nakhchivan exclave between Iran and Armenia, as well as territories retaken from Armenian separatists.

The exercises, dubbed "Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 2023," involve dozens of artillery weapons and aviation. Baku said they were aimed at "ensuring combat interoperability" between the allies.

The drills came as Azerbaijan, Armenia, Türkiye, Iran and Russia were set to send their foreign ministers to hold talks in Tehran in a diplomatic format initiated by Moscow in 2020 — after Baku and Yerevan went to war over Karabakh.

The talks are seen as Moscow's attempt to reduce growing Western influence in the region. Russia, which has traditionally mediated the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, has seen its role diminished since being focused on its invasion of Ukraine.

Azerbaijan's Armenian-populated enclave of Karabakh was at the center of two wars between the Caucasus arch-foe neighbors — in 2020 and in the 1990s.

On Sept. 19, Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive against Armenian separatist forces. After less than a day of fighting, separatist authorities agreed to lay down arms and reintegrate with Azerbaijan.

Almost all of Nagorno-Karabakh's ethnic Armenian population, some 100,000 people, left for Armenia after the offensive.