Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey will never hesitate to confront the attack on the rights and lands of Azerbaijan, in light of the renewed clashes with Armenia for the third consecutive day despite international calls for restraint.
"I strongly condemn the attacks launched by Armenia against our friendly and brotherly Azerbaijan," Erdogan said in a speech to the people after presiding over a government meeting at the presidential compound in Ankara.
He explained that there is - what he called - an attack on the borders of Azerbaijan with heavy weapons, "which is an indication that they are being deliberately attacked," noting that the attacks are aimed at prolonging the Nagorno-Karabakh region crisis.
Today, Azerbaijan announced the death of 7 of its soldiers, including a senior general, a colonel, and a civilian, while Armenia announced the death of 4 of its soldiers, in its first confirmation of deaths in the ongoing border clashes between the two countries for the third consecutive day.
The clashes that have continued between the two countries since Sunday are the fiercest in years, and cause concern from the outbreak of a major conflict in the troubled region.
The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense said that the Armenian side targeted its sites in the Tavush border region in the north with artillery, mortar and heavy machine gun fire, and added that the shelling also affected many villages.
On the other hand, the spokeswoman of the Armenian Ministry of Defense Sushan Stepanian announced that the Azerbaijani forces opened fire again on the northeastern sector of the border in the Tavush region.
A war between the two former Soviet republics would lead to wider repercussions and push the two regional rivals Russia and Turkey toward direct confrontation.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting for decades for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, in southwestern Azerbaijan, which Armenian separatists seized during a war in the 1990s that killed 30,000 people.