Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned against both sides in the Nagorno-Karabakh war from bringing mercenaries and “terrorists” from Syria into the conflict, given the proximity of the Iranian border. “Over the years, we have fought terrorists and forced them away from our borders, people like martyr Soleimani were on the ground and fought them, to kill terrorists right there and then to keep them from getting close to our frontiers,” Rouhani said during an Oct. 7 cabinet meeting, reported Tasnim News. “We fought terrorists in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq with the help of their people. It is unacceptable if certain people want to take terrorists from Syria and other places to areas near the Iranian borders under different pretexts, and we have straightforwardly informed officials in both the Azerbaijan Republic and Armenia of our position in that regard,” the President stated, according to the government’s official website.
Indeed, accusations that both sides are bringing terrorists and mercenaries into the combat zone continue to fly. Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense’s international military cooperation directorate chairman Hussein Mahmudov told TASS Oct. 7 that there are no terrorists from the Nusra Front and Sultan Murad groups on Azerbaijani territory. “I know it crystal clear that such members of various terror groups are not and cannot be on the Azerbaijani territory,” he said in apparent response to Russian foreign intelligence director Sergei Naryshkin’s statement of Oct. 6. “On the other hand, it is already a well-known fact that mercenaries are being involved from Lebanon and Syria to fight for the occupation forces. Armenia almost does not try to hide it anymore.”
Al Monitor, however, published a report it said was based on interviews with Syrian mercenaries on their way to fight for Azerbaijan. For the most part, they cite the pay and loyalty to the Turks as reasons for their going. “By joining the fight against Armenia through Turkey, I will achieve two goals: The first is getting a financial income in light of the poverty we live in, and the second is to stand by Turkey, which stood by our side in the Syrian regime’s war against us,” said one Syrian, identified by the pseudonym of Khaled Saleh, who said he was part of the Free Syrian Army.
