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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will meet Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Monday as ethnic Armenians fled the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh after a lightening military operation that has changed the contours of the South Caucasus.
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The Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, were forced into a ceasefire last week after a 24-hour military operation by the much-larger Azerbaijani military.
The leadership of the 120,000 Armenians who call Karabakh home told Reuters on Sunday that they did not want to live as part of Azerbaijan and that they would leave for Armenia because they feared persecution and ethnic cleansing.
As of 5am (0100 GMT) on Monday, more than 2,900 people from Nagorno-Karabakh had crossed into Armenia, the government of Armenia said as it rushed to prepare for thousands of refugees.
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.
“Bilateral relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan will be discussed, and views on current global and regional matters, particularly the latest developments in Karabakh, will be exchanged,” the presidency said.
They will attend a ceremony for a gas pipeline that will bring gas to Nakhchivan and inaugurate a newly modernised military installation in the exclave, the Turkish presidency said.
In the Karabakh capital, known as Stepanakert by Armenia and Khankendi by Azerbaijan, those with fuel started on Sunday night to drive down the Lachin corridor toward the border with Armenia, according to a Reuters reporter.
Reuters pictures showed dozens of cars driving out of the capital toward the…
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