The Armenian foreign ministry is accusing Turkey of shooting down one of its fighter jets. The incident marks a sharp escalation of tensions between the two countries over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh dispute
According to BBC, the Armenian official said the Soviet-made SU-25's pilot died after a Turkish F-16 destroyed his aircraft in an engagement within Armenian airspace. However, Turkey, who is giving Azerbaijan its support amid the conflict, has denied the claims.
More than 100 people, including civilians, have lost their lives due to the deadly battle for the mountainous region in just three days of conflict.
While the enclave is recognized as part of Azerbaijan internationally, it has been run by ethnic Armenians ever since the war between the two former Soviet republics from 1988 to 1994.
The Azerbaijan forces repeatedly denied that its air force was in possession of F-16 fighter jets. However, the Turkish air force has the model aircraft.
The three-day-long conflict has begun to crawl out of Nagorno-Karabakh, where both Armenia and Azerbaijan are accusing each other of firing directly into one another's territories and are accusing the other side of being responsible for the disputes over the region.
The engagements also come after Turkey has openly called for an immediate ceasefire within the area.
Shushan Stepanyan, the Armenian Defence Ministry spokeswoman, said that victim SU-25 was shot down during an engagement on Tuesday and that the pilot died heroically.
In a post on social media, the spokeswoman wrote that the Turkish F-16 aircraft was allegedly 60km inside Armenian air space.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's aide, Fahrettin Altun, demands that the Armenian military withdraw its troops from territories that are under Turkish rule instead of conducting propaganda schemes, as reported by RNZ.
Denial of accusations
However, Azerbaijani officials claim there was no Armenian plane that was shot down and that it was all a ruse to provoke opposition amid growing tensions in the region.
The Armenian government previously stated that the entry of Turkish troops amid the conflicts signal a potential broader response. Officials also said they could look into using the Russian-supplied Iskander-E quasi-ballistic missiles to attack targets in Azerbaijan.
Armenian officials have yet to reveal substantial evidence to prove their claims that a Turkish F-16 shot down an Armenian SU-25.
While Stepanyan's accusation of the Turkish F-16 was acquired from what she said is the SU-25 flight data recorder, experts wonder how the technology would have been able to discern that information on a foreign aircraft.
According to The Drive, the spokeswoman's post on Facebook claimed that the Turkish F-16 was operated from the Ganja International Airport in Azerbaijan. Satellite imaging that has been circulating around social media platforms shows that on September 27, there was no significant fighter jet movement in the vicinity of the airport.
The ongoing conflicts have resulted in the Azerbaijan forces utilizing their fleet of drones, including the Turkish-made armed unmanned aircraft Bayrajtar TB2 and several other Israeli-made loitering munitions.
