Saturday, October 3, 2020 Armenia Demands Turkey’s ‘Removal From South Caucasus’ October 03, 2020 NAGORNO-KARABAKH -- A house, which locals said was damaged during a recent shelling by Azeri forces, October 1, 2020 Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has demanded the withdrawal of Turkish military personnel and Middle Eastern “terrorists” from Azerbaijan, saying that is essential for stopping fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone. “Turkey’s military personnel and the Turkish armed forces are directly engaged in the hostilities,” he told the Canadian daily Globe and Mail in an interview published late on Friday. “Turkey’s NATO allies must explain why these F-16 jets are shelling towns and villages in Nagorno-Karabakh and killing civilian populations.” Pashinian also stood by Armenian claims that Ankara recruited Turkish-backed Islamist fighters in Syria and sent them to fight in Karabakh on the Azerbaijani side. “A ceasefire can be established only if Turkey is removed from the South Caucasus,” he added. Ankara maintains that Turkish warplanes, attack drones and military are not involved in the hostilities that broke out on September 27. It also denies deploying Syrian mercenaries in Azerbaijan. Baku denies that too. France has also alleged such deployment, with President Emmanuel Macron saying that at least 300 “Syrian fighters from jihadist groups” were flown from Turkey to Azerbaijan ahead of the flare-up of violence in Karabakh. "I urge all NATO partners to face up to the behavior of a NATO member,” Macron said on Friday. Russia has also accused, albeit implicitly, Ankara of sending “terrorists and mercenaries” to the conflict zone. It has demanded their “immediate withdrawal from the region.” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reacted cautiously to Macron’s claims backed up by Western media reports. “I hope it’s not the case,” Pompeo told reporters on Friday. “We saw Syrian fighters taken from the battlefields in Syria to Libya,” he said. “That created more instability, more turbulence, more conflict, more fighting, less peace. I think it would do the same thing in the conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh as well. So I hope that reporting proves inaccurate.” Commenting on Turkish involvement in the Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute, Pompeo said Washington disapproves of “third parties bringing ammunitions, weapon systems, even just advisors and allies” to the conflict zone. AZERBAIJAN -- A house that was allegedly damaged by recent shelling during the fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh is seen in the Agdam district, October 1, 2020. The United States, Russia and France have long been leading international efforts to broker an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal in their capacity as co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. The presidents of the three mediating powers called for an “immediate cessation of hostilities” in a joint statement on Thursday. They also urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to “commit without delay to resuming substantive negotiations.” Yerevan welcomed the statement, saying it is willing to engage in peace talks mediated by the Minsk Group co-chairs. By contrast, Baku effectively rejected the mediators’ appeal. “In order to stop the violence Armenia must withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh,” said a senior aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan likewise said the mediators should instead “demand that the Armenians pull their troops out of Azerbaijan.” He condemned their long-running peace efforts as a gross failure. In an interview with Al Jazeera aired on Saturday, Aliyev said the U.S., Russia and France should “continue working together on settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict” provided that they “remain neutral.” In an apparent reference to France, he said statements made by some of the co-chair countries in recent days indicate a pro-Armenian bias. Incidentally, Macron spoke with Aliyev and Pashinian separately on the phone late on Friday. The French president said in a statement that he proposed a new method to restart talks within the Minsk Group format. He did not elaborate. Pashinian too was interviewed by Al Jazeera on Saturday. He told the international TV network that renewed peace talks with Baku are conditional on an end to what he described as Azerbaijan’s “aggression” against Karabakh. “I can say with confidence that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh will not retreat in the face of the aggression,” the Armenian premier said as large-scale hostilities continued along the Armenian-Azerbaijani “line of contact” around Karabakh. He further made clear that Armenia will remain the “guarantor” of the disputed territory’s independence. Armenians Urged To Fight On As War In Karabakh Continues October 03, 2020 Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian addresses the nation, October 3, 2020. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian praised the Armenian military and urged his nation to help it defeat Azerbaijan as fierce battles continued around Nagorno-Karabakh for a seventh day on Saturday. Pashinian said that Baku has failed to “solve any strategic issue” with its “unprecedented” offensive launched on September 27. “Victory and only victory is the outcome which we imagine at the end of this fight,” Pashinian declared in a live televised address. “Already today, hours ago, the Defense Army of Artsakh (Karabakh) carried out active counteroffensive operations and achieved substantial successes, crushing several units of the enemy’s special forces.” “Through joint efforts we must break the attacking enemy’s spine so that it never again stretches its criminal hands towards,” he said. Pashinian charged that Azerbaijan wants to not only regain control over Karabakh but also exterminate its ethnic Armenian population. “We are probably living through the most decisive phase of our millennia-old history,” he said. Karabakh’s Armenian-backed army reported in the morning that Azerbaijani forces went on a fresh offensive at northern and southern sections of the “line of contact” around Karabakh, the epicenters of the week-long hostilities. It also accused them of again shelling the capital Stepanakert. The Defense Army claimed to have killed hundreds of Azerbaijani soldiers, destroyed dozens of tanks and armored vehicles and shot down three warplanes in the following hours. Shushan Stepanian, a spokeswoman for Armenia’s Defense Ministry, said early in the afternoon that Karabakh troops have repelled the “large-scale” offensive and launched a “counteroffensive in one of the directions.” She did not give details. In another statement issued at around 6 p.m., the Karabakh Armenian army said its frontline troops are “successfully accomplishing combat tasks set for them.” The statement came shortly after Pashinian’s televised speech. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in the morning that “fierce fighting is continuing along the entire frontline.” The ministry said its forces are dealing “crushing blows” to the enemy. The Karabakh army also reported on Saturday 51 more combat deaths within its ranks. The total number of Armenian soldiers killed in action since September 27 thus rose to 201. The Azerbaijani military has still not released any combat casualty numbers. The hostilities continued unabated despite international efforts to restore the ceasefire regime in the Karabakh conflict zone and pave the way for renewed peace negotiations. In an interview with Al Jazeera aired on Saturday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev blamed Pashinian for the collapse earlier this year of Armenian-Azerbaijani talks mediated by the United States, Russia and France. Aliyev claimed that Pashinian proved more intransigent than Armenia’s former leaders. “We do not yet have a negotiating partner in Armenia,” he said. Pashinian claimed the opposite, saying that Aliyev was not prepared for “mutual concessions” and never reciprocated his repeated statements to the effect that that a Karabakh settlement must be “acceptable to the peoples of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Karabakh.” Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.