Report: Israel helped Azerbaijan retake separatist region

According to the report, Israel sent a large amount of powerful arms ahead of Azerbaijan’s offensive to retake Nagorno-Karabakh.

Israel National NewsOct 5, 2023, 9:23 AM (GMT+3)
Nagorno-Karabakh
The Associated Press is reporting that the State of Israel supplied powerful weapons to Azerbaijan to fuel its campaign to recapture the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

According to the report, just weeks before Azerbaijan launched its 24-hour assault on September 19th, Azerbaijani military cargo planes repeatedly flew between a southern Israeli airbase and an airfield near Nagorno-Karabakh, according to flight tracking data and Armenian diplomats, even as Western governments were urging peace talks.

“For us, it is a major concern that Israeli weapons have been firing at our people,” Arman Akopian, Armenia’s ambassador to Israel, told The Associated Press. In a flurry of diplomatic exchanges, Akopian said he expressed alarm to Israeli politicians and lawmakers in recent weeks over Israeli weapons shipments.

“I don’t see why Israel should not be in the position to express at least some concern about the fate of people being expelled from their homeland,” he told AP.

Azerbaijan’s offensive involved heavy artillery, rocket launchers, and drones, which, according to experts, were largely supplied by Israel and Turkey. The lighting offensive forced Armenian separatist authorities to lay down their weapons and sit down for talks on the future of the separatist region.

The fighting claimed the lives of approximately 200 Armenians, most of whom were combatants and some 200 Azerbaijani troops, according to officials.

Israel’s Foreign and Defense Ministries declined to comment on the report.

Content retrieved from: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/377913.