Turkey sent 700 to 1,000 Syrian mercenaries to Azerbaijan: Reports

Turkey has reportedly sent between 700 and 1,000 Syrian mercenaries to Azerbaijan to fight in the ongoing clashes with Armenia over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, Reuters cited sources from the Syrian National Army as saying.

A private Turkish security firm was reportedly paying the fighters $1,500 a month and moving them across the border into Turkey before putting them on a flight to Azerbaijan, the sources said.

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On Monday, Armenia’s ambassador said that Turkey had sent around 4,000 fighters from northern Syria to Azerbaijan and that they were fighting there, an assertion denied by an aide to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.

Armenia also said Turkish military experts were fighting alongside Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous breakaway region of Azerbaijan run by ethnic Armenians, and that Turkey had provided drones and warplanes.

The clashes over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh are the heaviest since 2016, with reports of dozens of deaths and hundreds wounded.

(With Reuters)

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