Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Wednesday that the Minsk group was stalling in dealing with the Upper Karabakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] conflict, and he repeated that the region should be given back to Azerbaijan.
"If there are human rights and democracy in the world, and if you have been responsible for solving this issue in the OSCE Minsk Group, the thing you have to do is to finish these negotiations and return these territories to their owner," Erdoğan said.
In a speech to lawmakers from his ruling AK Party in the parliament, Erdoğan also said that Turkey had not sent Syrian fighters to Azerbaijan, as dismissing the baseless claims asserted by the Armenian side.
The Turkish leader also added Turkey fully backed its Azeri allies amid border clashes over the Erivan-occupied Upper Karabakh region.
The current clashes began on Sept. 27 when Armenian forces targeted civilian Azerbaijani settlements and military positions in the region, leading to casualties.
Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Upper Karabakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan.
For nearly three decades, some 20% of Azerbaijan's territory has remained under illegal Armenian occupation.
Many world powers, including Russia, France, and the US, have urged a new cease-fire. Turkey, meanwhile, has supported Baku's right to self-defense and demanded the withdrawal of Armenia's occupying forces.
Four UN Security Council and two UN General Assembly resolutions, as well as many international organizations, demand the withdrawal of the occupying forces.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group-co-chaired by France, Russia, and the US-was formed in 1992 to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, but to no avail. A cease-fire, however, was agreed to in 1994.
A humanitarian cease-fire announced last weekend for the exchange of prisoners and bodies was quickly broken by Armenian forces, leading to multiple deaths and casualties.
