Turkey and Azerbaijan are conducting joint military drills amid ongoing clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Al Monitor reported.
Turkey sent US-made F-16 fighter jets to Azerbaijan for joint exercises, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry announced today. The joint military drills began Wednesday and involve planes and helicopters throughout Azerbaijan, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Border clashes erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan last month in the Tavush-Tovuz area; Azerbaijan’s Tovuz region is home to a strategic energy pipeline.
The flare-up is part of a wider territorial dispute between the two Caucasus nations known as the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The area is disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and there have been several skirmishes there since the end of the Soviet Union.