ANKARA, Dec 1, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Turkey and Russia have agreed to monitor a
truce over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region from a joint peacekeeping
centre, Ankara’s defence ministry said on Tuesday.
The deal comes after days of talks between Turkish and Russian officials
about how the two regional powers would jointly implement a Moscow-brokered
ceasefire signed this month between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Technical details for setting up the joint centre were concluded and an
agreement was signed, the defence ministry said in a statement, adding that
it would begin work “as soon as possible.”
Turkey is a staunch ally of Azerbaijan and has fervently defended its right
to take back the Nagorno-Karabakh lands Baku lost to ethnic Armenian
separatists in a 1988-94 war.
The truce deal ended more than six weeks of fighting that claimed more than
1,400 lives and saw ethnic Armenians agree to withdraw from large parts of
the contested region of Azerbaijan.
The Turkish parliament voted this month to deploy a mission to “establish a
joint centre with Russia and to carry out the centre’s activities”.
The deployment is set to last a year and its size will be determined by
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Russia has said repeatedly that Turkey will have no troops on the ground
under the truce deal’s terms.