Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met his ally, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev, on Monday, as thousands of ethnic Armenians began an exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan defeated the breakaway region's fighters last week.
Erdogan paid a one-day visit to Azerbaijan's autonomous Nakhchivan exclave -- a strip of Azeri territory nestled between Armenia, Iran and Turkey -- to discuss with Aliyev the situation in the Karabakh region, the Turkish president's office said.
The Armenians of Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but previously beyond its control, were forced into a ceasefire last week after a 24-hour military operation by the much larger Azerbaijani military.
On Sunday, the Nagorno-Karabakh leadership told Reuters the region's 120,000 Armenians did not want to live as part of Azerbaijan for fear of persecution and ethnic cleansing and started fleeing the area.
Russia's RIA news agency cited early on Monday an Armenian government statement saying that more than 1,500 people had crossed into Armenia from Nagorno-Karabkah as of midnight.
Those with fuel had started to drive down the Lachin corridor toward the border with Armenia, according to a Reuters reporter in the Karabakh capital known as Stepanakert by Armenia and Khankendi by Azerbaijan. #turkey #azerbaijan #news #voanews
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