Your trusted source

"Armenia strongly condemns Turkey’s provocative actions and demand the immediate withdrawal of the Turkish armed forces, including the air force from the Karabakh conflict zone," Armenia's Foreign Ministry said in a released statement on Wednesday.

In a released statement on the involvement of the Turkish armed forces in Karabakh, the ministry reminded that on September 29, F-16 multifunctional fighter of the Turkish Air Forces downed the SU-25 Fighter of the Armenian Armed Forces within the airspace of the Republic of Armenia. As a result of the incident, Major Valeri Danelin, pilot of the Armed Forces of Armenia, was killed.

The ministry points this is not the first provocative action of the Turkish air forces. Since appearing in Azerbaijan, the Turkish air forces have been carrying out provocative flights along the line of contact between Artsakh and Azerbaijan. During the aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan, they in fact have been providing air support to the combat units of the Azerbaijani army. Notably, provocative flights by Turkey have been carried out along the Armenian-Turkish border as well, on certain instances crossing and violating the airspace of Armenia. On September 27, in the same section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, a Turkish F-16 airplane violated the Armenia air space and launched missiles at the Vardenis region.

"The Turkish air force appeared in Azerbaijan during the large-scale Turkish-Azerbaijani military drills held from July 29 to August 13 and, since then, has not been withdrawn from Azerbaijan.

The provocative actions of the Turkish armed forces seriously undermine the regional security and hinder the efforts of the international community to cease the hostilities. International community called on the external actors to refrain from escalating the conflict, and Turkey should heed these calls," the statement concluded.