Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Pakistan on Friday rejected “speculative and baseless” media reports claiming the Pakistan Army was fighting alongside Azerbaijani forces against Armenia in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.
“Such reports are irresponsible,” Foreign Office spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudri said in a statement. Armenian and Azerbaijani forces are currently engaged in the heaviest fighting in years over Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian province that broke away from Azerbaijan in the 1990s during the collapse of the Soviet Union. The long-simmering conflict erupted on Sunday with both sides blaming each other for the outbreak of violence.
A report published by TimesNowIndia and a few other media outlets this week claimed Prime Minister Imran Khan sent troops to the disputed territory to fight alongside the Turkish military and Azerbaijan army in Agdam.
The report quoted a telephone conversation between two locals in the area who mentioned the presence of Pakistanis in the territory.
“On Agdam’s side, they have gathered Pakistani soldiers and have taken them towards Agdam,” the locals were heard telling each other, according to these media reports.
Reiterating Islamabad’s position on the issue, the FO spokesman said Pakistan was deeply concerned over the deteriorating security situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
“The intensive shelling by Armenian forces on Azerbaijan’s civilian populations is reprehensible and most unfortunate.
