Are Turkey sending Syrian mercenaries to Nagorno Karabakh

Baku and Ankara deny reports that Turkey has recruited militants from Syria to assist Azerbaijan in fighting Armenia for the controversial Nagorno Karabakh region.

The first reports of the Syrian militants' arrival in Azerbaijan have been released in late September.

They have come from international news organisations correspondents such as Reuters, BBC, Guardian and Independent. Correspondents are called to the resources they have created during the war cover in Syria for years.

All have had interviews with veterans of the Syrian Free Army, which is supported by Turkey. They say they were recruited by a Turkish private firm to work in Azerbaijan.

Many have refused to identify themselves because of the sensitivity of the matter, and they have said that they fear revenge or the loss of wages.

Numerous sources in the Syrian Free Army have told different Western media that they have been promised salaries of $1,200 to 2,000 a month for work in Azerbaijan.

They have shared similar confessions, showing they were told they would serve as guards at oil facilities in Azerbaijan or in post-borders along the Contact Line, separating the Azerbaijann and Armenian forces prior to the outbreak of recent fighting on September 27th.

Reuters has quoted fighters from rebel groups supporting Turkey in northern Syria as saying they are stationed in Azerbaijan, in co-ordination with Ankara. However, the news agency has said it could not verify these claims.

I didn't mean to go, but I don't have any money. Life is very difficult and poor”, a militant who fought earlier in Syria, on the side of the faction of Ahr al-Sham, who was supported by Turkey, has told Reuters.

Syrian militants have been quoted as saying they have regretted going to Azerbaijan because they were sent to the front line.

After more than a week of fighting, reports have begun to emerge from Syria of dozens of killed Syrian warriors whose troops were being repatriated from Azerbaijan.

Opposable Preferences

Armenia's Ambassador to Russia, Vardan Toganian, has told Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti in late September that Turkey has sent 4,000 Syrian militants to fight on Azerbaijan's side.

Within days, France's President Emmanuel Macron, Iran's president, Hassan Rohan, and Russian intelligence officials have issued statements supporting claims that Syrian mercenaries are fighting for Azerbaijan.

However, no one has offered evidence to support these claims.

“Now we have information showing that Syrian fighters from jihadist groups have gone through Gaziantep [in southeastern Turkey] in the area of operations in Nagorno Karabakh”, Macron told reporters at an EU summit in Brussels on 1 October. “is a very serious new fact that changes the”, he said.

Rohan has said that the same Syrian terrorist groups “ “ > that Iran has fought for years until it supported the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reportedly are returning to Iranian borders, near the southern wing of battle for the capital of Nagorno Karabakh, Stepanckert.

Sergei Naryskin, leader of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), has even warned that the conflict could turn the region into “a new place for international terrorist organisations”.

On October 6th, Naryskin has said that the conflict is attracting people he described as mercenaries and terrorists from the Middle East.

We are talking about hundreds and now thousands of radicals, who hope to make money in Karabakh's new fight”, he said.

Turkish and Azerbaijani officials have rejected such claims.

Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan has said France and Russia both members of the Minsk Group for negotiations on resolving the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh have backed the Armenian side with weapons.

The Turkish leader has not mentioned that Russia has also sold weapons in Azerbaijan.

Hikmat Haciyev, assistant to Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, has said that <x0-seconds claims for the deployment of militants from Syria to Azerbaijan are another provocation from the Armenian side” and <x2 full-fledged”.

Turkish European Union Affairs Minister Omer Celik has said that such reports are “lied to” spread by Armenia “to cover its hostilities”.

On the other hand, Turkey's Defence Ministry has said without bringing any evidence that Armenia is assisted by Kurdistan Workers' Party fighters banned organisation, which has held uprisings in Turkey for decades.

Most Azerbaijanans also view reports of Syrian warriors in their country as undesirable.

Human rights activist Anar Mammadli refuses to believe the Sunnit militants from the Syrian Free Army would join mainly Azerbaijani Shiite troops to fight in Nagorno Karabakh.

“There is no concrete fact about Turkey's military support, except for political support for Azerbaijan”, Mammadli wrote on Twitter.

With such manipulation, at the expense of unconfirmed and unknown resources, they try to wear the conflict with religious clothing”, he said.

Independent Azerbaijanian journalist Seymur Kazimov has told Radio Europe's late Free Europe that “allegations of Syrians fighting on our side are false”

There is no evidence “, he said, reporting from the conflict area.

According to him, “Scandal” was initiated by a foreign journalist, “who wrote an article based on an unnamed son, without a picture. Nothing! No one has verified this”.

Reports in Guardian and Independent newspapers speak of Syrian citizens taking their relatives' troops.

According to the newspapers, Syrian Free Army fighters have launched a campaign in Syria against recruiting for Azerbaijan to discourage other militants from going there.

The Washington Post, writing on 13 October for the repatriation of 52 Syrian fighters, has said the deployment of Syrian mercenaries to Azerbaijan is fact.

American congresswoman Frank Palone, Jr., has posted on Twitter the Wall Street Journal report on October 14th, saying hundreds of Syrian militants, backed by Turkey, have joined the Azerbaijann forces.

Pallon has called on Washington's US State Department and “partners to condemn “these flagrant violations of international law”, saying that “is clear that Azerbaijan and Turkey are using foreign mercenaries in their continued acts of aggression” in Nagorno Karabakh.

Liz Cookman, an Istanbul-based journalist who writes to the American newspaper Foreign Policy, has said that sources within Turkey-based Syrian Free Army have confirmed that at least 1,500 Syrian fighters are deployed in Nagorno Karabakh.

The first “fighters have been transferred in late September to southern Turkey. Then they flew from Gaziantep to Ankara before moving to Azerbaijan on September 25,”, Cookman reported on October 5th.

Cookman has said that many Syrians, who have received four-month contracts for about 1,500 dollars a month, have repented, especially after the killing of 55 Syrian mercenaries” in Azerbaijan.

Turkey's Libya President

The conflict in Nagorno Karabak is not the first where Turkey is accused of recruiting militants it has supported in Syria.

A panel of UN experts has said that Turkey, in December 2019, has begun recruiting about 5,000 Syrian fighters to support Libya's internationally recognised government.

That UN panel has also said Russian security contractors have recruited 1,200 other Syrians, who have supported the Assad regime, to fight on the side of Libya's rival government, led by General Khalifa Haftar.

Numerous Western media reports have quoted Turkish recruits as saying they were promised jobs in the preservation of Libyan buildings, but, instead, they have found themselves engaged in fierce fighting against the Russian-backed Haftar forces.

UN investigators have also provided details of crimes committed by Syrian Free Army fighters supported by Turkey, including kidnappings, rapes and extortion.

The pro-government Turkish Institute, SETA, has said 21 out of 28 factions within the Syrian Free Army umbrella group have received support from the United States to fight the extremist Islamic State group in Syria.

But, some Syrian Free Army factions, such as Ahrr al-Sham, have previously been allies with Al-Qaeda and have been described as a <x0terrorist organisation” by some American officials.