Azerbaijan fully abides by the terms of the trilateral deal signed with Russia and Armenia, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, as he called on Armenia to also abide by the terms.
In response to a question about recent tensions between Yerevan and Baku, Erdoğan told reporters in Khiva, Uzbekistan, that Azerbaijan is a valuable ally and a brotherly country.
“Azerbaijan fully abides by the terms of the Trilateral Agreement and has not violated it,” Erdoğan said, adding that the Azerbaijani military responded to an attack by Armenia.
He highlighted that Armenia needs to fully withdraw its troops from internationally-recognized Azerbaijani territory.
In a new flare-up of tensions in the region amid Russia's military offensive in Ukraine, Azerbaijani troops on Thursday said their forces prevented a sabotage attempt by illegal Armenian armed elements in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the country.
Armenia's Foreign Ministry in a statement on Monday demanded an "investigation into the Russian peacekeeping contingent's actions during the Azerbaijani incursion.”
"We expect Russia's peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh to take concrete steps to put an end to Azerbaijani units' incursion into the zone of responsibility of peacekeepers," the statement said.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on Saturday that illegal Armenian forces in the region, which was liberated in the fall of 2020 from decades of Armenian occupation, took advantage of hazy weather to provoke the Azerbaijani army. It added that the Armenian forces had to retreat when "immediate measures" were taken, not specifying what form of provocation took place.
Azerbaijan said on Sunday that it had not withdrawn its forces and the area was its sovereign territory.
Earlier in March, Azerbaijan sent a proposal containing five conditions to normalize relations.
The Azerbaijani military routed the Armenian forces in 44 days of fierce fighting in the fall of 2020, which ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal that saw Azerbaijan gain control of a significant part of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Russia has deployed nearly 2,000 peacekeepers for at least five years to monitor the peace deal.
Following years of frozen ties, the neighboring countries of Turkey and Armenia have announced they seek to normalize relations amid efforts for regional integration and cooperation in the South Caucasus. In December, the two countries appointed special envoys to normalize relations.
The borders between the two countries have been closed for decades, and diplomatic relations have been on hold. Armenia and Turkey signed a landmark peace accord in 2009 to restore ties and open their shared border after decades, but the deal was never ratified and ties have remained tense.
Relations between Armenia and Turkey have historically been complicated. During the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict last year, Ankara supported Baku in its war that saw it liberate Azerbaijani territories from Yerevan's occupation.
