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Turkish Warplanes Fly In Azerbaijan

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  • Turkish Warplanes Fly In Azerbaijan

    TURKISH WARPLANES FLY IN AZERBAIJAN

    Tuesday, September 23rd, 2014 | Posted by Contributor

    Turkish F-16 fighter jets stationed at a military base in Azerbaijan

    BAKU--At least a dozen Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships
    are carrying out flights in Azerbaijan in the second joint
    Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercises conducted so far this year.

    The F-16 fighter jets, C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft and
    Super Cobra and Black Hawk helicopters reportedly arrived in Azerbaijan
    on Thursday to take part in what the Defense Ministry in Baku called
    "large-scale" exercises of its ground forces that ended on Saturday.

    A ministry statement released over the weekend claimed that they
    involved as many as 30,000 Azerbaijani soldiers, hundreds of tanks
    and artillery systems, dozens of military aircraft and helicopters
    as well as an unspecified number of Turkish military personnel. It
    said they practiced "offensive operations in different conditions,
    including in a mountainous terrain."

    Official videos of drills indicated a much smaller number of
    participating troops and pieces of military hardware, however. The
    images also suggest that the Turkish Air Force units have carried
    out flights near a military airfield, rather than the scene of the
    ground force exercises.

    A ministry statement cited by the Trend news agency on Monday said
    more than 30 Turkish and Azerbaijani fighter jets, military aircraft
    and helicopters are jointly training and "testing possibilities of
    coordination in combat operations." It said their joint flights will
    continue through October 3.

    Photographs released by the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry showed at
    least six Turkish F-16 jets and four Super Cobra choppers parked on
    tarmac at an undisclosed location in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani Defense
    Minister Zakir Hasanov visited the airfield and met with Air Force
    personnel at the weekend.

    The latest Azerbaijani war games began on September 13 more than a
    month after a sharp escalation of deadly fighting along Azerbaijan's
    border with Armenia and "the line of contact" around Karabakh.

    Ceasefire violations in the Karabakh conflict zone decreased just
    as dramatically following an August 10 meeting of the Armenian
    and Azerbaijani presidents mediated by their Russian counterpart,
    Vladimir Putin.

    "We monitor any [Azerbaijani] military exercise and take appropriate
    measures. But at this point we are not faced with any extraordinary
    threat," Davit Babayan, a spokesman for Karabakh President Bako
    Sahakian, told Armenia's GALA television on September 18.

    The previous Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercises took place near
    Turkey's border with Armenia in February. They reportedly involved
    more than 1,600 Turkish and about 100 Azerbaijani soldiers. The Turkish
    General Staff said at the time that the maneuvers are aimed at boosting
    cooperation between "the armed forces of the two fraternal states."

    Such drills appear to have become more frequent since the signing
    in 2010 of a Turkish-Azerbaijani treaty on "strategic partnership
    and mutual assistance." It is not clear, though, whether the treaty
    commits the Turkish military to fighting on the Azerbaijani side
    in case Baku attempts to forcibly regain control over Karabakh and
    territories surrounding it.

    During and after the 1991-1994 war with Azerbaijan, Armenia has sought
    to preclude direct Turkish military intervention in the Karabakh
    conflict with close defense links with Russia and, in particular,
    Russian military presence on its soil. A Russian-Armenian agreement
    signed in 2010 upgraded the security mission of a Russian army base
    headquartered in Gyumri, an Armenian city close to the Turkish border,

    The base has been reinforced with more modern weaponry in recent
    years. Over the past year Moscow has also modernized some 16 MiG-29
    fighter jets stationed in Yerevan. In addition, it plans to deploy
    about two dozen combat helicopters there by the end of this year.

    More than 1,500 Russian and Armenian troops held annual joint exercises
    in central Armenia earlier this month.

    http://asbarez.com/127210/turkish-warplanes-fly-in-azerbaijan/



    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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