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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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COP29 Nations are No Closer to a Goal on Cash for Climate Action

Participants and security staff stand outside the venue of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, 16 November 2024. EPA
Participants and security staff stand outside the venue of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, 16 November 2024. EPA
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COP29 Nations are No Closer to a Goal on Cash for Climate Action

Participants and security staff stand outside the venue of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, 16 November 2024. EPA
Participants and security staff stand outside the venue of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, 16 November 2024. EPA

Distractions were bigger than deals in the first week of the United Nations climate talks, leaving a lot to be done, especially on the main issue of money.
In week one, not a lot of progress was made on the issue of how much money rich countries should pay to developed ones to move away from dirty fuels and how to cope with rising seas and temperatures and pay for damage already caused by climate-driven extreme weather.
But more is expected when government ministers fly in for week two to handle the hard political deal-making at the negotiations — known as COP29 — in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Countries remain about a trillion dollars a year apart in the big number to be settled.
“All the developing countries look very united behind $1.3 trillion. That’s not a ceiling. That’s what they want. That’s what they think they need,” said Debbie Hillier, policy lead at Mercy Corps.
“The US and Canada are constantly talking about a floor of $100 billion.... So you've got $100 billion at one end and $1.3 trillion on the other end,” she said.
While poor countries have come up with a number for the total final package, the rich donor nations have assiduously avoided giving a total, choosing to pick a figure late in the bargaining game, Hillier said.
United Nations Climate Secretary Simon Stiell said, “negotiations on key issues need to be moving much faster.”
“What’s at stake here in Baku,” Stiell said, is “nothing less than the capacity to halve emissions this decade and protect lives and livelihoods from spiraling climate impacts.”
At the moment, the sides are far away, which is sort of normal for this stage.
“The technical details that are worked out by negotiators now have to give way to the bigger, harder number decisions made by climate and finance ministers to make more political decisions,” said Ani Dasgupta, president of World Resources Institute.
For her part, United Nations Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen said, “Member states have not moved and parties have not moved as expeditiously as they need to do.”
She added, “This is causing frustration. I understand that. So the answer is to push and push more and ensure that we land where we need to land.”
Andersen said it’s not smart to judge where countries will end up after just one week. Things change. It’s the nature of how negotiations are designed, experts said.
That’s how it usually goes.
Avinash Persaud, a special climate adviser at the Inter-American Development Bank said, “COP works on brinkmanship.”
He added that “COP works on the fear of us not reaching agreement in the end, which makes the process appear chaotic from the outside.”
Ministers will be consulting with their bosses half a world away and seven hours behind at the Group of 20 countries — the G20 — in Brazil from Monday.
Currently, eyes are on the COP president. Usually, the second week is when the COP president takes over and pushes sides together for a deal. Different negotiations' presidents have different styles. Last year's president used sharp elbows to get things done, upsetting some people.