Assad accuses Turkey of instigating Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Oct 6, 2020

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is to blame for the deadliest round of fighting in decades between Armenian and Azerbaijan. 

Hundreds are dead following recent clashes between the two former Soviet republics in the mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, a contested territory officially part of Azerbaijan but run by ethnic Armenians backed by Yerevan. The fighting is the deadliest since a yearslong war that killed 30,000 people ended in a Russian-brokered truce in 1994. 

NATO member Turkey, which also backs the Syrian opposition seeking to overthrow Assad, has offered Azerbaijan its support at both the negotiating table and on the battlefield. 

In an interview with the Russian news agency Sputnik, the Syrian president said Erdogan “was the main instigator and initiator of the recent conflict that has been going on in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia. So, I would sum up his behavior as dangerous, for different reasons.”

In response to allegations that Turkey had sent Syrian mercenaries to fight in the South Caucasus conflict, Assad said, “We definitely can confirm it.”