Turkey condemns Armenian attacks against Azerbaijan

Turkey's Foreign Ministry has condemned Armenia for committing "heavy weapon attacks" against Azerbaijan early on Feb. 25 in an attack that killed five Azerbaijani soldiers, according to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

The ministry issued a late on Feb. 26, offering condolences to the fallen Azerbaijani soldiers' families and the people of Azerbaijan.      

"Armenia has been keeping one-fifth of Azerbaijani territory under occupation for a quarter century," it said.

"We invite Armenia to follow the cease-fire rules and expect that heavy clashes will not occur again."      

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said in a written statement on Feb. 27 that five of its soldiers were killed in clashes with Armenia-backed separatists along the boundary with the Nagorno-Karabakh region. 

The Defense Ministry said that clashes occurred in the early hours of Feb. 25, in the remote Khojavend and Fizuli regions and that Armenia was still preventing the evacuation of five dead Azeri soldiers from the area.

It said that even though a deal was reached with the participation of representatives of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for a cease-fire to take effect at noon on Feb. 26, this did not happen and that the deceased soldiers could not be removed from the field where they fell. 

"The evacuation of bodies did not take place because the Azeri side violated agreements," the Nagorno-Karabakh separatists said in a statement.

The breakaway region's self-declared Defense Ministry accused the Azeri military of trying to infiltrate its territory and said there were no casualties on their side.

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