ANKARA — Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan held a phone conversation on Wednesday amid a massive Armenian exodus from the Nagorno-Karabakh region following Azerbaijan’s offensive.
The two foreign ministers discussed current regional developments, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu News Agency reported, citing Turkish Foreign Ministry sources. No further details were shared about the call, the report added.
The conversation marks the first known high-level contact between Ankara and Yerevan since the Azerbaijani offensive against the Armenia-linked separatists in the Nagorno-Karabakh region last Tuesday. While Western powers and Russia denounced the offensive, Turkey expressed its full support behind Baku. Earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev in the Azeri exclave Nakhchivan bordering Turkey.
The phone call comes amid a massive Armenian refugee exodus from the Nagorno-Karabakh region to neighboring Armenia. As of Wednesday, the number of ethnic Armenians who fled the region — which is home to nearly 150,000 — exceeded 50,000, said the Armenian prime minister’s press secretary, Nazeli Baghdasaryan.
