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Azerbaijan Holds First Joint Drills with Türkiye since Karabakh Victory

Azerbaijani servicemen guard the Lachin checkpoint in Azerbaijan, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Aziz Karimov)
Azerbaijani servicemen guard the Lachin checkpoint in Azerbaijan, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Aziz Karimov)
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Azerbaijan Holds First Joint Drills with Türkiye since Karabakh Victory

Azerbaijani servicemen guard the Lachin checkpoint in Azerbaijan, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Aziz Karimov)
Azerbaijani servicemen guard the Lachin checkpoint in Azerbaijan, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Aziz Karimov)

Azerbaijan said on Monday it had begun a series of joint military exercises with close ally Türkiye, the first since Baku retook the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh last month, prompting most of the territory's ethnic Armenians to flee.
Azerbaijan's defense ministry said in a statement that up to 3,000 military personnel were participating in exercises named for the founder of modern Türkiye, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Reuters said.
It said the drills were being held across Azerbaijan, including in Baku, the Nakhichevan exclave which borders Türkiye, and in what the ministry called the "liberated territories" of Karabakh.
Türkiye has close linguistic and cultural links to Azerbaijan, and offered Baku military and political support during its three decade-long conflict with Armenia, with which Ankara has no formal diplomatic relations.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have recently signaled willingness to sign a peace treaty formally ending their conflict following Azerbaijan's victory in Karabakh and the exodus of almost all the region's 120,000 ethnic Armenians.
The foreign ministers of the two countries, along with those of Türkiye, Iran and Russia, were due to hold talks hosted by Tehran on Monday on progress towards a peace agreement.
However, Baku this month accused Yerevan of undermining the peace process with "aggressive rhetoric".
Armenia describes the Karabakh Armenians' flight as ethnic cleansing driven by the threat of violence after a nine-month blockade of essential supplies, the latest chapter in a conflict between Christian Armenians and Turkic Muslim Azeris that goes back more than a century.
Azerbaijan says the Karabakh Armenian civilians were welcome to stay and be integrated in Azerbaijani society, but left voluntarily.

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Floods Hit Northern Philippines after Typhoon Forces Dam Release

People ride motorized tricycles on a flooded street following super typhoon Man-yi, in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines, November 18, 2024. (Reuters)
People ride motorized tricycles on a flooded street following super typhoon Man-yi, in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines, November 18, 2024. (Reuters)
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Floods Hit Northern Philippines after Typhoon Forces Dam Release

People ride motorized tricycles on a flooded street following super typhoon Man-yi, in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines, November 18, 2024. (Reuters)
People ride motorized tricycles on a flooded street following super typhoon Man-yi, in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines, November 18, 2024. (Reuters)

Floodwaters hit hundreds of houses in the northern Philippines on Monday after water released from a dam following Typhoon Man-yi caused a major river to break its banks.  

Packing maximum sustained wind speeds of 185 kilometers (115 miles) an hour, Man-yi slammed into Catanduanes island late Saturday, and the main island of Luzon on Sunday afternoon.  

The sixth major storm to batter the Philippines in a month dumped heavy rain, smashed flimsy buildings, knocked out power and claimed at least eight lives.

The national weather service had warned of a "potentially catastrophic" impact from Man-yi, which was a super typhoon when it hit, but President Ferdinand Marcos said Monday it "wasn't as bad as we feared".

As people cleaned up on Monday, floods began hitting communities in the north after water from Magat Dam was released, causing the Cagayan river and some tributaries to overflow.  

Rooftops could be seen poking through brown water in Ilagan city in Isabela province while buildings and roads near Tuguegarao city in Cagayan province were inundated.  

"If Magat Dam continues to release water on all of its seven gates, Ilagan city might get erased from the map due to flooding," Jun Montereal, chairman of the city's disaster preparedness committee, told AFP, estimating 500 houses had been flooded.  

"This is one of the gravest incidents that we have ever experienced because of the typhoon."  

Carlo Ablan, who helps oversee operations at the dam, said water was released after a "huge volume" of inflows due to rain from Man-yi.  

"If we won't be releasing water, the worst possible scenario will be our dam would collapse and that will be a much bigger problem," Ablan said.  

- Heavy damage -  

At least eight people were killed when typhoon Man-yi slammed into the islands over the weekend, including a 79-year-old man, who died in Camarines Norte after his motorbike was caught in a power line, police said.  

Seven people died and three were injured when a landslide buried their house in Nueva Vizcaya province in Luzon, Kristine Falcon of the provincial disaster agency told AFP.

Power outages across the island province of Catanduanes could last for months after Man-yi toppled electricity poles, provincial information officer Camille Gianan told AFP.

"Catanduanes has been heavily damaged by that typhoon -- we need food packs, hygiene kits and construction materials," Gianan said.

"Most houses with light materials were flattened while some houses made of concrete had their roofs, doors and windows destroyed."

In the coastal town of Baler in Aurora province, clean-up operations were underway to remove felled trees and debris blocking roads and waterways.

"Most of the houses here are made of light materials so even now, before the inspection, we are expecting heavy damage on many houses in town," disaster officer Neil Rojo told AFP.

"We've also received reports of roofs that went flying with the wind last night... it was the fierce wind that got us scared, not exactly the heavy rains."

- Storm weakens -

Man-yi weakened significantly as it traversed the mountains of Luzon and was downgraded to a severe tropical storm as it swept over the South China Sea towards Vietnam on Monday.

More than a million people in the Philippines fled their homes ahead of the storm, which followed an unusual streak of violent weather.  

Climate change is increasing the intensity of storms, leading to heavier rains, flash floods and stronger gusts.  

At least 171 people in the Philippines died in the past month's storms, which left thousands homeless and wiped out crops and livestock.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in Manila for talks with his Philippine counterpart and President Marcos, announced Monday an additional $1 million in humanitarian aid to victims of the recent storms.

About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Southeast Asian nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people, but it is rare for multiple such weather events to take place in a small window.

This month, four storms were clustered simultaneously in the Pacific basin, which the Japan Meteorological Agency told AFP was the first time such an occurrence had been observed in November since its records began in 1951.