Azerbaijan says nearly 2,800 of own soldiers killed in Karabakh war

Azerbaijan says it has lost nearly 2,800 of its soldiers in the recent war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the first details Baku has released about its military losses during the weeks-long clashes.

In a statement on Thursday, Azerbaijan’s defense ministry announced that “2,783 servicemen of the Azerbaijani armed forces were killed in the patriotic war”, adding that the identity of 103 of its fallen soldiers was yet to be determined via DNA tests.

The ministry added that one hundred more Azerbaijani troops were also missing.

Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but it has been occupied by ethnic Armenian separatists backed by Armenia since 1992 when they broke from Azerbaijan in a war that killed some 30,000 people.

The conflict re-erupted in late September, becoming the worst fighting in the region in decades.

After six weeks of deadly fighting in and around Karabakh, Yerevan and Baku eventually agreed on November 9 to end hostilities under a Moscow-brokered deal that secured territorial advances for Azerbaijan in Karabakh and seven surrounding districts.

The agreement was signed after the Azerbaijani army overwhelmed Armenian forces and threatened to advance on Karabakh's main city of Khankendi which Armenians call Stepanakert after a 19th-century Bolshevik militant.

The truce, which was warmly welcomed as a victory in Azerbaijan, has prompted anger in Armenia with protesters demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Elsewhere in its statement, Azerbaijan’s defense ministry praised the country’s military, saying Azerbaijani soldiers “showed courage and heroism in the Great Patriotic War and inflicted crushing blows on the Armenian armed forces.”

Armenia had earlier announced that 2,317 of its soldiers were killed during the war which also killed at least 93 Azerbaijani and 50 Armenian civilians, but the true death toll is said to be much higher.

As part of the ceasefire, nearly 2,000 Russian peacekeepers have stationed along the Lachin corridor in Azerbaijan, a 60-kilometer-long route that links Khankendi to Armenia.

With the handover of the occupied territories being complete, the next phase of the ceasefire includes the withdrawal of Armenian forces and separatists from Karabakh and the return of refugees to their homes, where Azerbaijanis and Armenians are about to live together under the suzerainty of Baku.      

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Erdogan to visit Azerbaijan

Separately on Thursday, the office of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced in a brief statement that the Turkish leader would visit Azerbaijan on December 9 and 10.

The planned visit is the first by a foreign head of state to Azerbaijan since the war ended.

Turkey’s presidential official did not give details of Erdogan’s visit to Baku, but it is expected that the Turkish leader will meet with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev.

According to Turkish media, the Turkish president will also attend a major military parade in Baku next Thursday when the “Karabakh victory” will be celebrated.

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